The traditional holiday in Aglona, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is the most important annual event in the life of Catholics in Latvia. Many devotees embark on the pilgrimage and even go by foot to the shrine held annually on 14 and 15 August. 

The road to redemption for the poor pilgrims is already hard enough; their path like their lives is strewn with stones. But this year the political cult of the Latvian Saeima (parliament) added additional difficulties on the way of believers. 

The fact is that entrance to the basilica was permitted only to those with allegedly genuine covid certificates. In social networks, a post with two photographs was scattered widely.

In the first, politicians and ministers after arriving in their taxpayer-funded limousines sit on chairs, watching the service. On the second, the believers, many of them of great age who were not allowed beyond the fence stockade around the basilica are seen kneeling at the fence and praying. The usually crowded square near the Aglona Basilica is almost empty.

There were also pictures in which the priest went out to the people behind the fence. People received communion as they kneeled in supplication besides scattered garbage cans.

It was impressive footage, where the Holy spring was blocked by a wall with the vaccinated on one side, not on the other. One is led to wonder if Saint Peter will allow through the Gates of Heaven only the Chosen Ones grasping their Covid certificates?

A participant at the Holy mass says, ‘The holy day turned into a show. It is so shameful. If they had come according to the basilica with a clear conscience, then, firstly, they would not sit, all the more, lounging, and secondly, they would not take the first places. This is not a theatre, there are no better ones, everyone is equal here. Therefore, all this is just a farce and has nothing to do with real faith and the holiday. 

Another writes: ‘It was possible to organize everything differently, troops to the Church. The most peaceful building, everything looked terrible. After this nightmare, I can’t go away. Old men and women kneeling on the newspapers behind the fence. Whoever organized it does not care about God, people, place, church.’

THE PERFECT DESCRIPTION: ‘A professional politician is a professionally dishonest man. In order to get anywhere near high office, he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a street walker.’  ~ American Essayist and Educator H. L. Mencken. Big Tech is censoring us. FOLLOW MY BLOG to continue getting our news.