About 600,000 Catholics took part Friday in a re-enactment of the Holy Week Stations of the Cross in Mexico City’s working-class neighborhood of Iztapalapa, which had been suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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“There are 600,000 people,” Claudia Sheinbaum, mayor of Mexico City, who celebrated the 179th anniversary of the tradition this year, told reporters.
“Since I was a child my father brought us (…) for me it is a satisfaction” to come back to attend the religious representation, declared to AFP Susana Montaño, a 63-year-old housewife.
“I felt sadness…like traditional things were getting lost,” she added of the health restrictions that kept her from attending the flamboyant Passion of Christ in 2021.
About a hundred people, including actors and musicians, took part in the Catholic staging.
Carrying photos of their loved ones, climbing trees, parishioners made their way through the crowd to catch a glimpse of the actors.
Izapalapa has recorded 8,847 deaths from the pandemic. The actors, who have been preparing for a year, had to present a negative test for Covid-19.
A total of 324,000 people have died from COVID-19 in Mexico.