Church in NY virus epicenter leads congregants out of sorrow

NEW YORK (AP) — For nearly two decades, Juan Tapia, head of maintenance at Our Lady of Sorrows, has taken pride in the upkeep of the Roman Catholic church he considers his second home. But in recent months, he’s made it his mission to scrub every corner.

“The experience of all those deaths we had to live through makes me want to do my job with great care, because I don’t want anyone to get infected,” said Tapia, who sometimes wears a hazmat suit to sanitize the pews between services.

More than 100 congregants of the parish in the mostly Latino Corona neighborhood of Queens died of COVID-19, many of them in the early days of the pandemic. And Tapia’s family was not spared.

Tapia’s son, Juan Jr., had worked with him at the church. The son was diagnosed with lung cancer before he contracted the virus that infected the whole family; he died on May 6, the anniversary of his baptism more than 20 years before. He was 27 years old.

“No family should have to go through this,” said his father.

The depth of the sorrows of Our Lady of Sorrows has become apparent in the months since this nearly 150-year-old church was a major hotspot in New York City’s roaring coronavirus contagion. Its pastor says the numbers of cases and deaths went underreported early on because church officials lacked accurate information and many people feared the stigma surrounding the illness.

Many are undocumented, lack access to health care and share crowded apartments that make them vulnerable to infection. The crisis has been exacerbated by record job losses and growing food insecurity.

But the church has helped lead the way out of those dark times, setting up a free COVID-19 testing site outside and resuming indoor confessions once it was safe — thanks partly to Juan Tapia’s...