Half a million Christians gathered in Levoča

Last weekend around 500,000 people attended the annual multi-day pilgrimage marking the Feast of the Visitation of Our Lady on Marian Hill in Levoča (Prešov region). The event was attended by several national and local officials and a relatively large group of pilgrims from Romania. "Our trademark isn't the vainglory of reason, an aggressive selling of our ideology, the removal of those who think differently, hatred, incitement to destruction or machismo. We aren't ashamed of our devotion which has the features of a female spouse," said German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in his sermon on Sunday.