AP PHOTOS: Rain or shine, emotions run high at Seville's Holy Week processions in Spain

With tears of emotion often flowing down their faces, tens of thousands of faithful have packed the rooftops, bridges and narrow streets of this historic city in southern Spain to watch much-venerated images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary carried in hourslong processions throughout Holy Week. “To see her in the street, I can’t explain it,” said Modesta Montaña as she cried with her daughter when the statue of Our Lady of Sorrows was carried past them by the Hermandad del Cerro, one of Seville 's dozens of brotherhoods. “It’s the happiness that we have her here outdoors, that this quantity of people are turning out.

” But this year, among the hundreds of brotherhood members charged with shouldering the massive floats and the crowd lined up to watch them, some also cried when more of the powerful storms that have wreaked havoc in the long drought-stricken country nixed their outing at the last minute. “Another year without being able to see my brotherhood in the streets because of the rain. It’s so sad,” said José Rodríguez, who had gone to watch the Hermandad de los Estudiantes procession on Tuesday, weeping while covering his face with his hands.



Starting on Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, hundreds of “costaleros” — solemnly robed and often hooded — carry huge floats with the sacred images in procession, in a tradition dating back centuries. Its fervor continues across Spain — and in many parts of Latin America — even as more people abandon organized religion. In Seville, elderly couples cheered from festively draped balconies, while one mom breastfed her infant daughter in the crowd as a float passed before them.

“ Youth especially don’t even think about faith. But popular devotion is a containment line,” said Jesús Resa, who leads the Hermandad de los Estudiantes — or students’ brotherhood, since it was founded just over a century ago by faculty and students at the University of Seville. “Many young people get close to religion because of it.

” In weekly meetings throughout the year, the 6,000-member brotherhood prepares its seven-hour procession to be held on Tuesday of Holy Week. Some 150 people in rotation are to carry the two floats, accompanied by 300 children altar servers — to give it a sweet touch amid the “very rigorous penitential seriousness,” Resa added. But this year, just like last year, rainstorms scrapped the procession at the last minute.

The brotherhood couldn’t risk damaging the 17th-century crucifix of “Christ of the Good Death,” so they celebrated a Via Crucis instead, the prayer that commemorates Jesus’ path to the cross. Starting in 2023, a persistent drought devastated Spain’s countryside, only to be replaced by severe flooding, including not only spring outpours but a deluge near the city of Valencia last fall that killed more than 200 people. Some scientists say climate change can make such swings more extreme.

Resa said that his brotherhood — like many religious groups across the country — had been praying for rain during the drought. This Holy Week, they switched to asking Jesus and the Virgin for world peace instead, he added with a chuckle. ___ This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

___ Dell'Orto reported from Minneapolis. ___ Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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