Rescue of miners celebrated ecumenically

Christian Century, August 14, 2002

The words "miracle" and "divine intervention" were commonplace when all nine trapped Pennsylvania coal miners were pulled out of the cold, flooded deep the last weekend in July. That praise was echoed at a joint service of thanksgiving a week later at an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation.

Clergy in a support role through a 77-hour ordeal said they had no doubt that God played a key role in the successful rescue. "We're just totally amazed at how the hand of God was on this the whole time," said United Methodist pastor Barry Ritenour. "God used people and accomplished this job in a fantastic way," he told United Methodist News Service.

UMC pastor Charles Olson agreed it was not simply luck but the divine guidance of a knowledgeable rescue team that strategically drilled a six-inch air pipe into the shaft to keep the trapped miners alive. "God put all of those people together and said, `Here's where we go.'"

Both United Methodist pastors consoled the families, along with clergy of Catholic and other churches, throughout the crisis, which began July 24 when the crew in western Pennsylvania accidentally drilled into an adjacent abandoned, water-filled mine. The miner who did the drilling, 41-year-old Mark Popernack, and his family belong to Grace United Methodist Church in Somerset, where Olson is pastor. Olson recalled that when he saw the miner in the hospital following his rescue, Popernack said, "Reverend, I'm sorry I can't be in church this Sunday, but I'll be there the next."

After the accident, a church member who works for the Pennsylvania State Police called Ritenour, who pastors two United Methodist churches about a mile from the rescue site. He was asked to open the Sipesville Volunteer Fire Department Hall for families and to gather local clergy. "I got there Wednesday night and left there Sunday morning at 3 A.M.," Ritenour said.

ELCA pastor Dennis L. Doebler hosted the joint service of thanks on August 4 at Christ Casebeer Lutheran Church, just 100 yards from the rescue site. The church had been used for storage for emergency fire equipment, and congregants helped feed rescue workers. Filling the church for the service were hundreds of family, friends and neighbors.

The service was covered live by CNN with a United Methodist minister in Atlanta "given free reign to interpret the meaning of each part of the service," said David W. Reid, communications director at Duke Divinity School. "I thought this was a media breakthrough in good interpretation of religion."