Even a global pandemic won’t prevent the beloved Virgin of Zapopan from making her annual pilgrimage back to her home base in the Zapopan Basilica, a procession known as the “Romeria.”
This year, however, Cardinal Francisco Robles Ortega, the archbishop of Guadalajara, says the diminutive corn-husk Catholic icon will undertake the traditional October 12 trek across the Guadalajara metropolitan area escorted by a handful of vehicles and not the hundreds of dancers that usually accompany her on her journey.
Spectators will be discouraged from lining the route – the colorful religious procession usually attracts around one million faithful, many who travel long distances to ask favors of the Virgin as she passes by.
Robles Ortega said a “special operation” will be observed to avoid large conglomerations of people. “What we ask citizens is that they come out to say hello to the Virgin from the window of their houses,” he said.
The Masses held in the Guadalajara Cathedral and Zapopan Basilica at the start and end of the procession will still go ahead, Robles Ortega said, but with a limited presence of about 50 people.