The Mexican Bishops Conference expressed its solidarity and offered prayers for the relatives of the 13 pilgrims who died Jan. 29 when the passenger van in which they were traveling overturned.
The Jalisco State Civil Protection and Fire Department reported that in addition to the deceased ten people were injured in the accident, which occurred on the León-Aguascalientes highway in the Lagos de Moreno municipality.
The statue of Our Lady kept in the basilica in San Juan de los Lagos is associated with a miracle that took place there in 1623, and each year thousands of pilgrims come to venerate the image. The devotion has spread to some parts of the United States, primarily Texas.
In a Jan. 29 statement the Mexican Bishops’ Conference “expressed its solidarity in prayer with the relatives of the victims of the overturning of a passenger van with pilgrims from Toluca in Mexico state whose destination was to visit the Virgin of La Candelaria in San Juan de los Lagos, Jalisco state.”
According to the newspaper El Milenio, initially 12 people were reported dead, but one of the injured died on the way to the hospital.
“May our Lord God and Holy Mary of Guadalupe our Blessed Mother sustain you in these difficult times and grant that you may soon be able to find closure,” the bishops’ statement concludes.
The cause of the accident has not been determined.