The Blessing of the Animals in the plaza by Olvera St. on the Saturday before Easter is a tradition that goes back at least 200 years. Originally farmers and ranchers would bring their cows and horses to be blessed by the priest of what is now called La Placita Church.
Today, the archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, does the annual blessing and most of the animals this year were little dogs, primarily chihuahuas it seemed. And an extraordinary number of them were dressed in pink as you can see in the photos below. Another interesting fact: crowd control was being handled by Fire Department cadets, not the LAPD. And, of course, Archbishop Gomez had his own uniformed and plain clothes security around him.
Happily, the Olvera Street merchants association makes certain that the traditional farm animals lead the parade of pets and their owners in front of the archbishop and that people dressed in colorful traditional costumes are near the front of the line. They make good visuals for the TV stations.
Because I arrived about an hour early I took a lot of photos and I’m just going to line them up below. The captions will tell you more about it all.
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