Filipino Catholics hold big procession after pandemic eases

By JIM GOMEZ and AARON FAVILA
Associated Press

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Thousands of Catholic devotees have joined a night procession through downtown Manila to venerate a centuries-old black statue of Jesus Christ, which was not paraded to discourage an even larger crowd amid lingering fears of COVID-19. The more than 80,000 devotees who church officials said joined the nearly 3.7-mile “Walk of Faith” procession early Sunday were a small fraction of the more than a million worshippers who typically converged in pre-pandemic years to pay homage to the life-size Black Nazarene statue in one of Asia’s biggest religious festivals. Without the Nazarene, Sunday’s procession from a historic park by Manila Bay to a church in Quiapo district was orderly but still festive.