'We are doing vital services for the community': Des Plaines shrine prepares for reopening
One of the most revered Catholic shrines for Latinos north of Mexico City is gearing up for reopening later this month.
Public Masses will start June 28 at the Des Plaines Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, frequented by thousands of worshippers from all over the country weekly during pre-coronavirus times.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, the outdoor shrine typically attracted nearly 7,000 people for weekend Masses. It is the second-most-visited Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine in the world, behind the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, visited by millions yearly.
To establish social distancing guidelines, church leaders have marked up the main plaza where congregants gather to pray. They placed signage in numerous locations to educate people about the rules, especially important for a population hit hard by COVID-19.
Still, maintaining distancing when the crowds return and limiting attendance will be challenging, said Rector Esequiel Sanchez.
"The most we can do is demand continued social distancing, people to be always masked up," Sanchez said. "We will have masks available. We will also educate our volunteer base on how to do proper sanitizing. You have to model the behavior for them and encourage people. At the end of the day, people have to take responsibility for themselves. We can't be policing every single person 24/7 at an open shrine."
Many suburban Catholic parishes whose leaders have been trained and certified by the Archdiocese of Chicago have been offering sacraments, such as celebrating baptisms, weddings, funerals and reconciliations, re-establishing Eucharistic Adoration and private prayer. The diocese has issued new guidance for reopening churches, limiting attendance to 20% capacity.
That is still too restrictive for the shrine, which doesn't have a set membership.
"People just come. We can't turn people away at the door," Sanchez said. "We are doing vital services for the community that we can control a little bit more."
That includes baptisms, funerals and confessions. Officials also have been livestreaming rosary prayers and Sunday Masses weekly to unite and comfort worshippers. Word about the shrine's reopening will be spread through the church's social media platforms.
Once Masses resume, they will be briefer than usual, with fewer embellishments so people can get in and out faster. On inclement days, services will be moved into one of the major chapels with the crowd limited to about 20% of capacity, Sanchez said.
A majority of Masses are celebrated in Spanish. with one English Mass weekly.
"We will see what the response is," Sanchez said. "I think people are still very much anxious concerning the virus ... (It is) prevalent in the Latino community which I primarily serve, so educating people about the dangers of this is very real."
Latinos comprise 32.2% of the state's 130,603 confirmed COVID-19 cases - the highest among all races and ethnicities - and 19.9% of deaths.
Yet, scaring people away from church is not the answer, Sanchez said, especially at a time when the need for spiritual guidance is acute.
"Shrines are places where the best of times and the worst of times come together," Sanchez said. "There is an intensity about the place. A lot of things that we are dealing with socially, (there) is a lot of pent-up stress. Prayer and churches (are) a major psychological and emotional stress inoculator that people are missing."
The Des Plaines shrine was placed at Maryville City of Youth at 1170 N. River Road, on July 4, 1988. A yearly celebration in December marks the anniversary of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531 to an Aztec Indian in Mexico. It draws more than 100,000 people from diverse backgrounds, including people from the Polish, Filipino, Korean and Hindu communities.
"The people are the story. Why they come. What is in their heart," Sanchez said. "We have to add a few more steps for people to be safe."