Mexicans saw their Catholic faith tested to the limit Sunday with traditional mass canceled, churches empty and alms trickling away more than a week after swine flu first shook up the country.Worship took place outside as traditionally packed churches came under a widespread shutdown on public meeting places, including restaurants and schools, in a bid to contain the virus which has killed 19 people and infected 487 here.
"Although we're hearing news that this health crisis is stabilizing, I think we shouldn't lower our guard," Archbishop of Mexico Norberto Rivera Carrera said in a radio message.
Many of Mexico's Catholics, some 90 percent of the population or more than 90 million people, prayed for an end to the flu.
"God now has to end this horrible illness," said 70-year-old Ana Maria Hernandez after she this week knelt before the altar of Mexico City's main cathedral, the largest on the continent.
"God, look at how your people are suffering, help them," said Josefina Aparicion, a 45-year-old nurse.
Several days after the epidemic first hit world headlines, Mexico's faithful even paraded a two-meter (yard) effigy of "Christ of Good Health" from the baroque cathedral for the first time in more than 150 years.
Church leaders led calls for businesses to refrain from laying off workers, with the economy hard hit by flu fears and the shutdown on top of the economic crisis.
Alms fell some 70 percent during the week, local press reported.
Father Jose Camarena, from a parish in the center of the city, organized home visits by priests to sick and worried families.
"If someone seems too concerned, I say to them: go drink a bottle of tequila, it may not cure the flu but it'll help you forget," Camarena said with a glint in his eye.
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Source (AFP)
SV (ED)