Virgin of Guadalupe: Basilica of Guadalupe will receive 12 million pilgrims

It is estimated that around 12 million pilgrims will visit the sanctuary of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City between December 8 and 12. In total, the figure is expected to exceed 18 million visitors throughout the entire month of December.

The central feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12, commemorating the last day on which Saint Juan Diego appeared to the Indian in 1531. That same day, as proof for Fray Juan de Zumárraga, first Bishop of Mexico, the image of the Virgin was miraculously stamped on the tilma of San Juan Diego.

493 years later, the tilma of San Juan Diego is preserved in the Basilica of Guadalupe, at the foot of the Tepeyac hill, bringing together the millions of pilgrims who venerate it.

Attendance figures were announced in news conference on December 3 by Janecarlo Lozano Reynoso, mayor of Gustavo A. Madero, the mayor’s office where the Basilica of Guadalupe is located. Lozano Reynoso highlighted the magnitude of the Guadalupe celebrations in December, indicating that Mexico City is positioned as the “number one religious tourist center in the world.”

At the same press conference it was reported that 11,264 officials will be assigned to guarantee the safety of the pilgrims. In addition, the installation of a soup kitchen and the care of more than 200 doctors and nurses was arranged.

Alejandra Frausto Guerrero, Secretary of Tourism of Mexico City, indicated that in the country’s capital “there is no time in the year where a greater number of tourists are concentrated than, precisely, in the Guadeloupan fervor festivities, on the days before and the days after.”

The Secretary of Tourism also indicated that visitors will be able to tour the temples located around the Basilica, in the area known as Villa de Guadalupe. Among these, they could reach the Pocito Chapel. According to the website of the Primate Archdiocese of Mexico, this temple is the place where one of the apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe took place, and was a point where there was a spring where “the indigenous people came to wash their wounds, attributing healing properties to it.” ”.