Procession with image of Our Lady of Charity, El Cobre, September 8, 1997.

Procession led by Catholic priest (left); Santeria drummers and devotees join the procession (right).

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As part of the annual festivities of Our Lady of Charity on September 8th, a procession with the Virgin's image (in a new wardrobe or a replica) takes place after the religious service. Such religious public processions were common throughout the Catholic world in the past when no separation between state and church existed, and wherever the separation came about, these spectacles took place with the authorization of the state.

Although in colonial times and during the Cuban Republic, the annual Virgin's procession took place in El Cobre's streets, after the Revolution religious public spectacles were banned and displaced into private spaces. For many years the celebration was confined to the interior of the basilica, but with the religious opening in the island during the 1990s, the annual procession began to take place around the church, in the Sanctuary's own grounds, perhaps with a view to taking it into the streets in the future. The Virgin of Charity's religious procession became a political statement that emblematized the coming out of religion into "the open" and the willingness of citizens to publicly affirm their religious affiliation regardless of their political identification. Santeria devotees joined with their drums in this Marian procession that to many also doubled as a celebration for Ochun. The procession provides a stage for the contestation and negotiation of various issues among several constitutencies.