20 months after Hurricane Katrina many New Orlean clergy are suffering.

Churches and synagogues have played an important role in New Orleans’ recovery, supplying money and thousands of volunteers to rebuild homes and resettle families. But an April survey found 444 places of worship in metropolitan New Orleans — about 30 percent — were still closed 20 months after the storm because they were damaged or their congregations scattered.
…For more than a year, Rabbi Bob Loewy of Congregation Gates of Prayer has been part of an interfaith clergy support group, whose members share the frustrations involved in trying to comfort their congregants and deal with their own problems, too.

For a while, formal counseling was part of every meeting of the region’s rabbinic council, Loewy said. “Recently, every meeting’s always had some level of debriefing and sharing,” he said.

Many clergymen are reluctant to ask for help, keeping their feelings bottled up the way doctors and firefighters often do, said Karen Binder-Brynes, a New York psychologist who specializes in post-traumatic stress and whose clients include the Episcopal Diocese of New Orleans.

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