Church of the Mercy

This guide to the Church of the Mercy in Panama City opens in 1671, when the pirate Henry Morgan's men tore through the old capital, Panama Viejo, and the Mercedarian friars who ran the church refused to leave its carved stone facade behind. It follows the friars as they numbered every block of the ruined wall and hauled it across the wreckage to rebuild it here two years later. It also traces two images of the Virgin of La Merced that survived the same fire and arrived from Spain and Europe in the decades after.