The mayor of Alicante, Luis Barcala, stated that yesterday was “the most massive Santa Faz in all our history”, citing attendance between 330,000 and 350,000, which is not a small thing in the case of a party that is celebrated on a Thursday that It is only a holiday in the city, which has 362,000 registered inhabitants. The truth is that at 6 in the morning there was already a queue to enter the temple.
It cannot be denied that an overwhelming crowd walked the seven kilometers that separate the co-cathedral of San Nicolás from the monastery that now houses Augustinian nuns. Given that it rained last year and the pandemic prevented it from being held the previous two, you have to go back four years to make comparisons. Then it was much hotter -it was May 2- and regional and municipal elections were also close. There was talk of 300,000 attendees.
The sunny but cool day invited yesterday to start the walk. From sunrise, the pilgrims began to take some of the 15,000 rosemary canes arranged for this purpose. The official procession left twenty minutes late, and accumulated even more delay while waiting for the Virgen del Remedio, patron saint of the city that after 25 years was incorporated into the celebration, would meet the procession. So the mass began with considerable delay.
In it, Bishop Munilla recalled that in the Our Father the faithful ask for bread, and used the acrostic formed by this word to formulate a triple plea: peace, water and birth. He made reference to the war in Ukraine, but also to the one in Sudan, and asked that, beyond knowing who is to blame, a climate is created that encourages peace and negotiation.
Regarding water, which politicians like the president of the Generalitat himself, Ximo Puig, incorporated into their own requests, Munilla did not miss the opportunity to point out his political vein: “we ask for the gift of heaven, but when we turn to God we must be attentive upon return, and God expects us to know how to distribute gifts as a family distributes gifts”, he assured, before denouncing the “lack of patriotic sense” when distributing water resources.
Puig recalled that water is needed “now more than ever” for which he called for “efficiency in use and solidarity with the water that exists.” Mayor Barcala also prayed to the divine Face for “lots of health and water, a water that we need for such a cruel moment of drought that we are going through, and for health because we do not forget what we have been through.”
Barcala explained his proposal to create the Foundation of the Holy Face for the preservation of the Pilgrim and the conservation and maintenance of the monastery and its surroundings. The City Council, as the founding patron and protector of the relic, has begun to draft the statutes for the constitution of a Board of Trustees, which will allow the pilgrimage to be preserved, develop an action plan and have a budget for the conservation of the monumental complex declared an Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC) and the entire environment of the district.
It is intended that the Foundation and its Board of Trustees ensure the promotion and dissemination of the pilgrimage, as well as the safeguarding of the movable, immovable and intangible heritage elements of the Holy Face, without prejudice to the powers of the administration in matters of cultural heritage. and of the Catholic Church in liturgical and religious matters.
The barely contained emotion of the two councilors who this year carried the keys to the dressing room, Mari Carmen Sánchez and Lidia López, symbolized that of thousands of Alicante residents, children, adults and the elderly, natives of the city like the two of them, or adopted, like so many Colombians, Ecuadorians, Argentines or Ukrainians, among other nationalities, who yesterday joined the pilgrimage.
The preventive campaigns and the police control worked and, although many young people diverted their way to the beaches to continue with the festive day, the image of the carts loaded with alcohol and the incidents caused by ingestion, which were common until a few years ago, They seem like a thing of the past.
The mayor was pleased that barely twenty minor incidents had been reported during the morning. “The balance could not be more positive, due to the attendance and for being a great party day”, he said. The Government delegate in the Community, Pilar Bernabé, confirmed that it was a “record” pilgrimage, which took place “successfully and calmly”.
The president of the Alicante Provincial Council, Carlos Mazón, let his lyrical vein flow when he affirmed that Alicante’s “hearts shine, our skin crawls”, in a pilgrimage that “makes all of Alicante come together in a very special”.