One of the U.S. officials visiting tsunami survivors this week was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, DC, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who is also a member of the board of Catholic Relief Services. Kim Lawton accompanied the cardinal and reports from Sri Lanka.
KIM LAWTON: Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and Catholic Relief Services president Ken Hackett came here to encourage tsunami victims and to assess the humanitarian situation. On Thursday (January 13), they visited Batticaloa, a remote region on the east coast that was particularly hard hit. It's a predominantly Hindu and Christian area where the Catholic Church has a strong presence. Local Church leaders showed the American delegation miles of devastation, where entire communities were leveled. They also visited a Catholic church where parishioners were engulfed by waist-deep water. Victim after victim described stories of harrowing survival and tragic loss.UNIDENTIFIED MAN: She lost her husband, two children.
Cardinal THEODORE MCCARRICK (Archbishop, Washington, DC): Oh, Mary, I'm so sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: And her mother and her niece.
Cardinal MCCARRICK: Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, I'm so sorry. Tell her how sorry I am. What a good family. God bless you, Mary, and keep you close. God bless you.
LAWTON: The cardinal prayed with them and praised their courage.
Cardinal MCCARRICK: The world cries with you. We know that you are our brothers and sisters in God's one family.LAWTON: Three Catholic schools in Batticaloa have been turned into refugee camps providing temporary shelter for more than 1,000 families. The church says more than 60,000 families in this small district have been displaced.
(To Cardinal McCarrick): How does it hit you, just sort of seeing the magnitude of it all?
LAWTON: Well, of course, like everybody else, I'd been watching the video from home, and so I though I was prepared. But when I got here it was really overwhelming and heartbreaking to see it in person -- and just to see the magnitude of it -- miles and miles of possessions and homes just strewn across the beach. I also, as a journalist, felt uncomfortable intruding on people's grief. But, I found as I walked along, people wanted to tell me their stories. They wanted to share with me about their loss -- where they were when the tsunami hit. And they wanted to tell me about their family members who were taken.
