Catholic devotees in Bolivia prepared for one of the country’s biggest religious celebrations this weekend at a time when the church in this Andean country has been rocked by an increasing number of sex abuse scandals.
The faithful who were gearing up for the Jesus of the Great Power festival Saturday insisted that cases of abuse that have come to light in recent weeks would not affect the folk-religious festival in La Paz, which fuses together Catholic and local Indigenous traditions.
Tens of thousands of people will descend on the capital Saturday wearing colorful garb to dance to the beat of thousands of musicians playing traditional Indigenous music in a demonstration of their faith.
Leaders of the Catholic Church acknowledged this week that the church had been “deaf” to the suffering of victims of sexual abuse amid fallout from the case involving a late Spanish Jesuit priest, Alfonso Pedrajas.
Source: The Hour
