Look out across the myriad harbor

Legend has it that this gold leaf altar piece was disassembled and hidden in the forest when Sir / Pirate Henry Morgan burned Panama City. It now stands in the Church of San Jose in Panama City.

This image of the Virgin Mary looked quite a bit like the Virgin of Guadalupe to me, which would be a bit of a surprise to find in Panama.

Jesus stands at the tip of the peninsula on which the city of Colon is built. You can see ships lined up to get into the canal behind him.

This beautiful port was once visited by Christopher Columbus, who named it Portobelo, which means “beautiful port.”

It was a center of Spanish colonial trading, as the Atlantic terminus of a road that stretched to the Pacific at Panama City.

Now it is the destination for pilgrims who come from all over the isthmus, some walking all the way on their knees.

They come to the Church of San Filipe in the center of town.

While the altar in San Filipe is beautiful, that is not what attracts the pilgrims.

The come to venerate the image of Jesus Nazareno, the Christ who shares in their sufferings.

Moreover, this image, Christo Negro, is more reflective of the population of Panama’s Caribbean coast.

People in and around Portobelo also perform “Congo” dances which preserve elements of African culture brought by slaves and escaped slaves to the isthmus.

This large room in the customs house once stored much of the Spanish wealth before it left the Americas.

The building retains echoes of its former prominence.

The guns of three forts served to protect the third most important Spanish settlement in America.

They continue their silent vigil over the water.

And over the land, having been surprised by a land attack from Pirate / Sir Henry Morgan once, they would not be so again.

Now, lest you for a minute think that Panama is either Anglican or Anglophone, let’s be real clear about the history and dominant culture of this country. The first Europeans to arrive here were Spanish, and as we Europeans tend to do, they moved in and took over. Panama was strategic because it’s narrow breadth allowed relatively easy passage for treasures from places like Peru to come across to the Atlantic and thence to Spain. In fact, Panama was the first Spanish holding in the Americas to be organized into an administrative district. The idea of Panama has been around for a long time.

And the church has been in Panama for quite some time as well. (By “church” we’re talking the Roman Catholic church primarily, of course.) The Roman church was not only the established church of the empire, it is the official religion of the country to this day. Yet it has not simply imported a set of European values and cultural markers and impressed them on Panama. The people of Panama have shaped the practice of Christianity in the area as well.

The most obvious manifestation of this give and take is the special place that Jesus Nazareno, the Black Christ, occupies in the lives of the people. This depiction of Jesus is especially powerful because he is shown in the moment of his greatest suffering, as he is proceeding toward Calvary and carrying his cross. For people who have endured many hardships, this image reminds them of Christ’s solidarity in their suffering. Likewise, a dark skinned Jesus looks more like the people who are being asked to believe that he suffered with them. Given that many depictions of Christ coming out of Europe show his skin to be quite pale, this image stands out as a reminder that black people matter to God.

And it might have been easy for these folks to feel as if they had been forgotten much of the time. Ships would show up for a few weeks once or twice each year. The streets would be jammed with traders, sailors, and people looking to take advantage of both. It would seem like this is the time when Portobelo would come alive, but what about the rest of the year? In some ways the long months in between the arrival of ships would seem like the time when this beautiful port would really live, forgotten as they may have been by everyone except Christo Negro.