The Catholic Church in Mexico cancels pilgrimage to Guadalupe due to a pandemic

The Mexican Catholic Church announced on Monday the cancellation of what is considered the largest Catholic pilgrimage in the world, for the Virgin of Guadalupe, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Mexican Bishops' Conference stated in a statement that the basilica will be closed from 10 to 13 December. The Virgin is celebrated on December 12, and pilgrims travel from all over Mexico weeks in advance to gather by the millions in Mexico City.

The church recommended that "Guadalupe celebrations be held in churches or at home, avoiding gatherings and with appropriate sanitation".

Archbishop Salvador Martínez, rector of the basilica, recently said in a video released on social media that 15 million pilgrims visit during the first two weeks of December.

Many of the pilgrims arrive on foot, some carrying large representations of the Virgin.

The basilica houses an image of the Virgin which is said to have miraculously impressed itself on a cloak belonging to the indigenous farmer Juan Diego in 1531.

The church acknowledged that 2020 was a difficult year and that many faithful want to seek consolation in the basilica, but said conditions do not allow for a pilgrimage that brings so many in close contact.

At the basilica, the ecclesiastical authorities said they did not remember that its doors had been closed for another 12 December. But newspapers from nearly a century ago show that the church formally closed the basilica and with priests withdrawn from 1926 to 1929 in protest against religious laws, but the accounts of the time describe thousands of people who sometimes flocked to the basilica despite the lack of a mass.

Mexico has reported more than 1 million infections with the new coronavirus and 101.676 deaths from COVID-19.

Mexico City has tightened health measures as the number of infections and hospital occupancy begin to rise again