Mexico's Guadalupe pilgrimage draws huge crowd after one-year absence

A pilgrim carries an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe at the Basilica prior to the celebration of the annual Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Mexico, December 11 2021. REUTERS/Luis Cortes

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A throng of Catholic pilgrims estimated at more than 1.5 million people gathered at a basilica in Mexico City on Sunday for the annual Virgin of Guadalupe gathering after the festivities were canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Virgin of Guadalupe basilica, the most visited Catholic shrine of the Americas, was constructed next to a hill in the north of the Mexican capital where Catholics believe that Mary, the mother of Jesus, appeared to an Aztec man in 1531, a decade after the Spanish conquest of Mexico.