NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

    MEXICO CITY, 14 (NE) Before dawn, a multitude of Mexican faithful gathered last October 12 in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Guadalajara in order to begin the traditional Marian feast held every year in this region. An hour later, together with the first rays of sunlight, the Virgin of Zapopan was carried out of the temple by faithful and taken to the Sanctuary on their shoulders.

    For four hours an approximate of two and half million people accompanied the image of the Virgin in her journey back home, after almost five months in which she has traveled visiting over 140 parishes in the Archdiocese of Guadalajara.

    At 11: 00 in the morning, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, Archbishop of Guadalajara, presided over a Eucharistic celebration. In his homily he invited all the people present to make a "spiritual pilgrimage, that the walk of this morning be but an external sign of an interior pilgrimage, that must carry out a change within us."

    The devotion to the Virgin of Zapopan, the second most venerated in Mexico after the Virgin of Guadalupe, dates back hundreds of years in Mexican history. The traditional procession held every October 12 was carried out for the first time in 1735.

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