NEW YORK – 1000’s of devout Catholics gathered this Monday in the money of the Dominican Republic to venerate the Virgen de la Altagracia, referred to as the patron mother of the Dominicans, on the event of the closing of the events structured for the centenary of her canonical coronation. .
The principal activity took spot in a packed Olympic Stadium, with a capacity of about 50,000 persons, where the image of the Virgin was transferred from the Basilica of Our Lady of Altagracia, in the municipality of Higüey (east), in which the acts on January 21, working day committed to the Virgin in the place.
The most important Eucharist was entrusted to the delegate of Pope Francis for this event, Monsignor Édgar Peña Parra, who generally tackled the family and younger persons, whom he called to renew the Christian faith and to distance them selves from ideologies.
“Do not be seduced by what is occurring, by the ideologies that are modern day colonialism, by evasion, by drugs, by violence and by the thousand causes that appear to justify it,” Peña Parra explained to the 1000’s of all those existing.
Formerly, in the so-known as Puerta del Conde, in the colonial city of Santo Domingo, religious and governing administration authorities, which includes the country’s president, Luis Abinader, honored the Virgin.
“Yesterday’s devotion is the similar as today” since the Virgin of Altagracia “has been and will proceed to be our protector around the generations”, mentioned the president, who declared this Monday a day of countrywide exultation.
History states that the canvas with the impression of the Virgin of Altagracia venerated in the basilica of Higüey was introduced to the then island of Hispaniola in the 16th century by the Spanish brothers Alfonso and Antonio Trejo, who moved to that city from the Japanese Dominicans.
The impression was topped for the very first time in 1922, during the pontificate of Pius XI, and in 1992, when Pope John Paul II visited the Dominican Republic for the next time.
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