A tradition drawing Valley Catholics and those from across Eastern Ontario will not be going ahead this year.
Father Ken O’Brien, of St. James Parish in Eganville, says the Pilgrimage of Ste. Ann that happens every July, is cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That was eighty-two years ago.
The annual trek draws between two thousand and twenty-three hundred pilgrims to Cormac, on Highway 512 below Foymount.
Father O’Brien says the Parish Council reached the decision with a heavy heart, known its significance to the area faithful.
He says with diocesan churches shuttered by edict of the Archbishop, and the impossibility of maintaining social distancing during a pilgrimage there was no other practical choice.
