Anthropology of Catholicism by Norget Kristin

Author:Norget, Kristin
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520288423
Publisher: University of California Press

FIGURE 14.1. Souvenir photo stall, Cerro de Tepeyac, Mexico City, December 11.

FIGURE 14.2. Pilgrims on Calzada de Guadalupe, Mexico City, 2012.

To one side of the stage, a young seminarian enthusiastically invites various groups of pilgrims to come and offer “serenades” (“Migrants’ Serenades,” “Workers’ Serenades,” and so on), others to offer a cheer to the Virgin as if at a sporting event (“A la Bio, a la Bao, a La Bim Bom Ba, la Virgen, la Virgen!”). As the boys’ choir assembles on the main stage, the huge lights behind the stage turn green, then purple above the massive pipes of the modern organ. The entire scenario is a state of continuous movement, noise, and alternating washes of colored light.

The mass begins with Norberto Rivera, cardinal and primate archbishop of Mexico and archbishop of Mexico City, speaking about the marvel of the Virgin’s appearance almost five hundred years before, and the wonder of Pope Francis, selected as “the new missionary of God” some eight months earlier. He greets the pilgrims and the prelates—the bishop of Munich, others from Poland—who have been specially invited. Within the various liturgies themselves are sermons, messages, songs, in many languages, indigenous and European—Mazatec, Latin, Portuguese, French, Italian, Náhuatl, in addition to Spanish. We hear fireworks from outside exploding periodically throughout the ceremony, breaking the aura of solemnity inside the basilica. In his mass homily, Archbishop (and Basilica Rector) Enrique Glennie makes continuous reference to the Virgin’s mythic role as transcendent, maternal, and redemptive arbiter-healer:

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