Remembering the holy places: Photographer David Policansky captures New Mexico's historic Catholic churches with his lens

Dec. 17—Editor's note: The Journal continues the once-a-month feature "That's Life" with Ollie Reed Jr., who takes a deeper look into a New Mexico story.

If you pay attention and get off the freeways as you travel through New Mexico, you have likely noticed there are a lot of old Catholic churches in the state.

According to David Policansky, who has to date produced three photo books on the topic, there are more than 400 historic Catholic churches in New Mexico.

He's talking about just the older churches. With a few exceptions, the churches in his books were built no later than 1955. But most are much older. In Policansky's most recent book, "Historic Catholic Churches of Northeastern New Mexico" (Sunstone Press, 2023, $65 hardback, $50 paperback) there are several that date back to the 1700s.

Policansky's earlier books are "Historic Catholic Churches Along the Rio Grande in New Mexico" and "Historic Catholic Churches of Central and Southern New Mexico."

He says there are more historic Catholic churches in the northern part of the state than other regions, so plans are to follow the latest volume about churches in the northeast with one about those in the northwest.

In this column, I'm focusing on his latest book.

A fragile legacyThere are 117 churches covered in "Historic Catholic Churches of Northeastern New Mexico." Forty-seven are in San Miguel County, 23 in Mora County, 20 in Taos County and the remainder are spread out over Colfax, Union, Harding, Quay and Guadalupe counties.

The book does not feature detailed stories about the churches. Sometimes Policansky was challenged just to discover the names and construction dates. What you will find is Policansky's photographs of all the churches — in a few cases there are exterior and interior pictures — concise descriptions of the churches and directions to help you find them.

As I paged my way through the book, I found myself reliving episodes from my 47 years in the state.

On page 35, there's San Jose Church in Colonias in Guadalupe County. I first saw this church, which dates back to the 1780s, in the 1980s when I was writing a series of stories about New Mexico ghost towns for The Albuquerque Tribune.

The church was in deteriorating condition back then and looks even more forlorn in the photo Policansky took in 2021.

"This once-grand adobe church seems too far gone to be restored," he writes.

On page 69, there are the ruins of Nuestra Señora de Porciúncula, circa 1717, at Pecos National Historical Park, in San Miguel County, and on page 63, we find San Miguel del Vado Church, 1806, also in San Miguel County. In the spring of 2021, Journal photographer Eddie Moore and I stopped at both while working on a story about the 200th anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail.

Earlier this year, I wrote a story about a Catholic community's efforts to raise money to renovate Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe Church, 1856, in San Miguel County's El Macho. The church, on page 62, is closed because structural decline makes it unsafe.

The church in El Macho and San Jose in Colonias are good examples of the vulnerability of the old churches. A lot of them are no longer used and are in disrepair. Policansky writes that churches in tiny, isolated areas may not survive and that many have already disappeared.

Stunning, very old, gorgeousPolicansky, 79, was born in Cape Town, South Africa, but came to the United States to attend universities. He has a bachelor's degree in biology from Stanford, and a master's and doctorate in biology from the University of Oregon.

He and his wife share an affection for New Mexico, its history, culture and landscape and now live year-round in Mountainair. Prompted by an admiration for the architecture, art and music associated with churches, he began searching out and photographing the state's adobe, stone and brick churches in 2005.

"The more I did it, the more I became aware of the cultural and historical importance of these churches," he said. "I also became aware of their impermanence. This evolved from a casual interest in photographing these churches to documenting them. I started to wonder if anyone would publish a book about them."

Asked to name churches in northeastern New Mexico that stand out from the rest, he mentions first the massive and impressive San Francisco de Asis (pages 142 and 143) in Rancho de Taos.

He said the church, built from 1772-1816, is "stunning, very old and gorgeous inside and out."

Remote but beautifulSan Francisco de Asis is easily accessible from New Mexico Highway 68, but Policansky said numerous churches are in out-of-the way areas that require driving miles of dirt roads to reach.

One such is St. James (Santiago), page 76, in Maes in San Miguel County. It was constructed in the 1890s.

"It is very, very rural, east of Las Vegas, way out in a very sparsely occupied area that is now private land," he said.

San Isidro (page 118) at Tinaja in Colfax County dates back to the early 1900s.

"This church is representative of very remote but beautifully maintained churches all over New Mexico," Policansky said.

The same can be said for another San Isidro (page 28), which is at Albert in Harding County. On privately owned ranch land, the church, built in the late 1800s, appears in the photographs to be exquisite inside and out, but Policansky writes that it is not being used for services.

One obstacle encountered by Policansky in compiling his books is that some of the churches are behind locked gates. But he said he has always managed to find the help he needed to surmount that difficulty.

"It sometimes takes some sleuthing to find out who has the key, but I can't think of a locked gate I have not been able to get through," he said. "One of the important aspects of this project is all the kind and interesting people I meet in every part of the state."

On occasion, his searches have been futile.

"There was supposed to be this church in Socorro County, in the little town of Bernardo, but I could not find it," he said. "There was a church not far from Gallup. I had seen pictures of it and knew right where it was. I got there and it was fenced off. I found out a pipe had burst, flooding the church and damaging its foundation. It was demolished."

Policansky said he has put 100,000 miles on his vehicles (1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee and 2014 Jeep Cherokee) and occasionally broken pieces off them in the course of his expeditions.

Just recently he set off to find a church that should have been included in his northeastern book but got left out because it had been mistakenly identified as non-Catholic. It is at Miera in Union County, and Policansky feared it would be difficult to reach.

"I took two gallons of water with me and gave the phone number of the county sheriff to my wife in case she did not hear from me by a particular time," he said. "But it turned out the roads were great, and I had no problem."