One of America’s oldest churches has just received a grant to restore it’s building and school to working order. San Miguel Catholic church located in Socorro, NM received a $1.1 million dollar grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation as announced by the church’s priest, Andy Pavlak.
The more than 500 year old church had to close it’s door back in 2010 after it was discovered that the walls were collapsing due to a faulty repair of the stucco that trapped water in the walls and damaged the underlying adobe structure.
San Miguel was built on the ruins of the old Nuestra Señora de Socorro mission which was established around 1626. The current church was most likely built around 1821.
Parishioners and local businesses have given more than $400,000.The church was getting ready to wipe out its savings all to make sure the Catholic church continues.
One of the larger donors has been the Bursum family who own one of the few remaining small banks in America, First State Bank of Socorro. The Bursum family is related to the Hiltons and were working with the foundation to raise the large amount of money to save San Miguel.
Conrad Hilton, founder of the Hilton hotel empire, was born just south of Socorro in San Antonio, NM. He was baptized at San Miguel and his parents were buried in the church cemetery.
The word has spread quickly in and around Socorro. Everyone is praising the Lord for providing not only enough money to repair the church, but also enough to repair the attached school and even build a small gift shop.
The parishioners have had to meet in the fellowship hall for the last few years instead of their beloved San Miguel parish.
