Many Churches Heed Bush's Call for Prayer

Congregations across the country paused Friday for a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, answering a proclamation President Bush issued last week.

In Washington, bells tolled at the Washington National Cathedral, where clergy from a dozen faiths led a midday service attended by relief workers, evacuees and government employees.

"We pray for the dead, for the displaced, and for those who labor to bind up a broken coast," the dean of the cathedral said in opening prayers.

In New Orleans, a small congregation gathered inside St. Louis Cathedral — its copper roof patched with blue tarp — for one of the first public services in the French Quarter since the storm.

Bush, who attended a private service before departing for meetings at the White House, had called on Americans to pray "for strength and wisdom, for resolve and for compassion" in the recovery ahead.

Faith-based groups have been among the largest private responders to the disaster, running shelter kitchens and clothing drives in stadiums and churches from Houston to Atlanta. Relief officials say church networks have housed more evacuees than any single government program.

The day of prayer fell on a Friday, and mosques in several Gulf Coast cities incorporated prayers for the displaced into midday services, organizers said.

Not every congregation embraced the proclamation. A Baptist minister in Houston whose shelter houses 200 evacuees said his flock needed little prompting. "We have been praying since the levees broke," he said. "Today we prayed with company."