In Spain, processions canceled for the first time since 1933

Madrid

It had been eighty-seven years since this happened. Seville, the capital of Andalusia, has not been deprived of all of its famous processions since a protest against the anticlerical policy of the Second Republic in 1933. For three or four centuries, this tradition encouraged by the reform seemed immutable. The costaleros carry the holy images on their shoulders. The Nazarenos and penitents, and their pointed hats, recognizable among all, wear candles, sometimes a heavy cross. In the south of Spain, the saetas, these songs addressed to the Virgin or to Christ from the window of an apartment, move the whole world. Across the country, each town and village has forged its own customs. Some walk in silence, faithful to the reputedly austere character of the Castilians. Others, notably in Calanda, in Aragon, make the drums resound, which so marked the filmmaker Luis Bunuel. Across the Peninsula,

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