Thousands of pilgrims trek through New Mexico desert to historic adobe church for Good Friday — Morgan Lee, Associated Press
A unique Holy Week tradition is drawing thousands of Catholic pilgrims to a small adobe church in the hills of northern New Mexico, in a journey on foot through desert badlands to reach a spiritual wellspring.
For generations, people of the Upper Rio Grande Valley and beyond have walked to reach El Santuario de Chimayó to commemorate Good Friday.
Pilgrims began arriving at dawn. Some had walked through the night under a half moon, carrying glow-sticks, flashlights and walking staffs.
Some travelers are lured by an indoor well of dirt believed to have curative powers. Throughout the year, they leave behind crutches, braces and canes in acts of prayer for infirm children and others, and as evidence that miracles happen.
Easter week visitors file through an adobe archway and narrow indoor passages to find a crucified Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas at the main altar. According to local lore, the crucifix was found on the site in the early 1800s, a continent away from its analog at a basilica in the Guatemalan town of Esquipulas.
A spiritual place
Chimayó, known for its artisan weavings and chile crops, rests high above the Rio Grande Valley and opposite the national defense laboratory at Los Alamos that sprang up in the race to develop the first atomic weapon.
The iconic adobe church at Chimayó was cast from local mud at the sunset of Spanish rule in the Americas in the early 1800s, on a site already held sacred by Native Americans.
Set amid narrow streets, curio shops and brooks that flow quickly in spring, El Santuario de Chimayó has been designated as a National Historic Landmark that includes examples of 19th century Hispanic folk art, religious frescoes and saints carved from wood known as bultos.
A separate chapel is dedicated to the Santo Niño de Atocha, a patron saint of children, travelers and those seeking liberation and a fitting figure of devotion for Chimayó pilgrims on the go.
Hundreds of children's shoes have been left in a prayer room there by the faithful in tribute to the holy child who wears out footwear on miraculous errands. There are even tiny boots tacked to the ceiling.
Pueblo people who inhabited the Chimayó area long before Spanish settlers believed healing spirits could be found in the form of hot springs. Those springs ultimately dried up, leaving behind earth attributed with healing powers.
A way of life
Photographer Miguel Gandert grew up in the Española valley below Chimayó and made the pilgrimage as a boy with his parents.
"Everybody went to Chimayó. You didn't have to be Catholic," said Gandert, who was among those who photographed the 1996 pilgrimage through a federal grant. "People just went there because it was a powerful, spiritual place."
Scenes from that pilgrimage — on display at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe — include children eating snow cones to keep cool, men shouldering large wooden crosses, infants swaddled in blankets, bikers in leather and weary pedestrians resting on highway guardrails to smoke.
A generation later, Good Friday pilgrims still haul crosses on the road to Chimayó. Throngs of visitors often wait hours for a turn to file into the Santuario de Chimayó to commemorate the crucifixion.
Adrian Atencio, 30, fell to his knees and ran his hands through the red earth in the well of the floor in the Santuario. Atencio, from nearby San Juan Pueblo, has been making the Good Friday trek since age 7. This time it was about the future and new beginnings.
"I have a newborn on the way. I was kind of walking for him today," he said.
It's just one of hundreds of adobe churches anchoring a uniquely New Mexican way of life for their communities. Many are at risk of crumbling into the ground in disrepair as congregations and traditions fade.
A journey on foot
Some pilgrims walk 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Santa Fe, while others travel for days from Albuquerque and beyond. They traverse an arid landscape speckled with juniper and piñon trees and cholla cactus that finally give way to lush cottonwood trees and green pastures on the final descent into Chimayó.
Vendors sell religious trinkets, coffee and treats. State transportation workers, law enforcement agencies and other volunteers are stationed along the roadway to ensure safety from oncoming traffic, the outdoor elements and exhaustion.
The magnitude of the religious pilgrimage has few if any rivals in the U.S. Many participants say their thoughts dwell not only on Jesus Christ but on the suffering of family, friends and neighbors with prayers for relief.
"You can't come here and not feel something," said Dianna De Leon of Albuquerque, who arrived on foot with her 78-year-old mother, Victoria Trujillo, who carried a weathered crucifix on one shoulder.
Trujillo has been making the journey for 51 years, except when the church closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's a little piece of heaven — all this faith and all this hope," she said.
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
NM health officials: No new measles cases — Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Earlier this week, health officials urged parents to consider seeking one dose of the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine for infants aged 6-11 months who live in Doña Ana County — the fourth and latest New Mexico county with cases — or who will be traveling to either Doña Ana or Lea counties, where the bulk of the state’s cases have thus far taken place.
Normally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends infants receive the first dose at 12 to 15 months and a second dose between 4 to 6-years old. Dr. Jana Shaw, a State University of New York professor of pediatrics, notes that babies gain some antibodies from measles when the mother is vaccinated, so the recommendation is often to wait until 1 year of age for the most effective protection.
Except when there’s an outbreak.
“If the risk is increased, vaccinating children less than one year of age is recommended; it’s safe,” Shaw told Source. And with no antiviral therapies to treat measles, “the only preventive tool we have is vaccination,” she said. “Once your child is infected, our tools are pretty limited in terms of what we can do to treat, support and help your child to heal.”
New Mexico’s cases as of April 18 stood at 63, with no new cases reported on Friday, according to a Department of Health spokesperson. The bulk of those cases —59 — occurred in Lea County. Of the total cases, 46 afflicted non-vaccinated people; six were vaccinated; and 11 had unknown vaccination statuses. In nearby West Texas, where New Mexico’s outbreak likely began, the health department on Friday reported 597 confirmed since late January, an increase of 36 since the April 15 update.
Nationwide, according to the CDC’s most recent figures, a total of 800 confirmed measles cases have been reported by 25 jurisdictions. The 2019 series of outbreaks totaled 1,249 measles infections, and were the largest in the U.S. since the CDC declared measles eradicated in 2000.
Shaw praised the strong responses from local health departments and vaccination strategies for bringing that outbreak under control, but expressed concern about misinformation’s impact on public health.
“It was through vaccination how we stopped [the 2019] outbreak,” Shaw said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have such a strong intervention in place now, and certainly doesn’t seem to be very coordinated. I’m concerned this will continue to spread.”
Public health authorities warned about the threats of vaccine safety misinformation even before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the concerns have accelerated since then, according to Jagdish Khubchandani, a public health professor at New Mexico State University.
Khubchandani co-authored a 2021 paper on vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic and is currently funded by the National Science Foundation grant to further study misinformation impacts on public health.
“It’s a complicated problem, and I think it needs urgent action at the local, regional and global levels,” he told Source. “We have seen, in the meanwhile, that the rise of misinformation and vaccine hesitancy proliferates at a faster rate than awareness campaigns for vaccination.”
Proposed Endangered Species Act regulations changes would impact NM wildlife — Hannah Grover, New Mexico Political Report
Wildlife advocates say proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act regulations could harm New Mexico’s wildlife by allowing industries to destroy habitats.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a notice this week in the Federal Register announcing rulemaking that would rescind the definition of “harm” in the ESA regulations.
“The existing regulatory definition of ‘harm,’ which includes habitat modification, runs contrary to the best meaning of the statutory term ‘take,’” the notice states.
These changes could allow oil and gas developers to drill in areas where lesser prairie chickens gather to lek. In that situation, the developers would only be prevented from intentionally killing or removing lesser prairie chickens.
In the past, groups such as WildEarth Guardians have brought lawsuits against entities based on the definition of harm in the regulations, Joanna Zhang, the endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians, said.
She gave the example of a settlement with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District. In the lawsuit, WildEarth Guardians maintained that actions taken as part of the Middle Rio Grande Project were harming the Rio Grande silvery minnow and other species by removing too much water from the river system, or damaging the habitat the fish and several bird species rely upon.
“When you have that definition of harm as habitat damage, we’re essentially saying, okay, by taking water out of the river, you’re doing the same thing as killing them,” Zhang said.
She said the proposed changes wouldn’t necessarily mean that habitat is no longer protected, but it would make it easier for industries to destroy vital habitats.
“You need strong and clear protections in place for habitat in order for the species to do well, because if you take an animal or plant’s food and home away, then how are they supposed to live?” she said.
Noah Greenwald with the Center for Biological Diversity said the Endangered Species Act itself includes the term harm.
“For more than 40 years, harm has been defined to include significant, significant habitat modification or degradation leading to actual death or injury of endangered species,” he said. “And that’s really one of the primary places in the act where habitat is protected.”
Greenwald said from the Center’s perspective, the changes the Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed are “not what the Act says or intended.”
The proposal also comes as the world is facing a biodiversity and extinction crisis.
“Scientists around the world warn that we’re at risk of losing more than a million species in the coming decades. It’s something we should all be concerned about,” Greenwald said. “Species are really the building blocks of ecosystems, and ecosystems cycle our nutrients. They pollinate crops, they moderate climate, they moderate flooding, they clean our air and water, and so the fact that we’re degrading the natural world and losing all these species should be a great concern, because it indicates that we’re undercutting our own quality of life.”
These proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act regulations come as Republicans have pushed measures that would weaken the law in an effort to promote economic interests. For example, U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Arkansas, is pushing legislation that would require economic impact analyses whenever there’s a proposal to list a species as endangered or threatened.
Republicans in Congress have also sought to remove the lesser prairie chicken’s protections because of the impacts it could have on energy development. Lesser prairie chicken habitat is becoming increasingly fragmented in eastern New Mexico amid oil and gas development, a burgeoning wind energy industry and new transmission lines. Former President Joe Biden vetoed a bill in 2023 that would have overturned the lesser prairie chicken’s listing.
Republicans have also decried logging restrictions in areas where Mexican spotted owls are found and they argue that these restrictions on logging are creating dangerously dense forest conditions.
Meanwhile, ranchers in New Mexico oppose habitat protections for the meadow jumping mouse because of restrictions on grazing.
The public comment period on the proposed rule is open through May 19 and organizations like EarthJustice, WildEarth Guardians and Center for Biological Diversity are planning to submit comments.
If the Fish and Wildlife Service moves forward with the proposed changes, the groups are gearing up to challenge it in court.
Public comments can be submitted here under docket FWS-HQ-ES-2025-0034.
Military officials identify 2 Marines killed in crash during border deployment — Associated Press
Military officials have identified the two Marines from California who were killed when their vehicle crashed as a convoy was traveling along the U.S.-Mexico border near Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
They were Lance Cpl. Albert Aguilera, 22, of Riverside and Lance Cpl. Marcelino Gamino, 28, of Fresno. Both were members of the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion based at Camp Pendleton.
Another Marine with the battalion remains in critical condition.
The investigation into Tuesday's crash is ongoing, military officials said in a statement.
The region where the accident took place is just over the state line and west of Fort Bliss, a major Army installation in West Texas that has played a critical role in dispatching military deportation flights and served as a touchpoint for thousands of soldiers and pieces of equipment now deployed along the border.
The troops are deployed there in support of President Donald Trump's executive order to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
NM Highlands University sues FEMA, alleging unnecessary hurdle in way of 2022 wildfire compensation - Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
A public university in Las Vegas, New Mexico is suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency, alleging the agency is illegally forcing it to jump through bureaucratic hoops before it can seek compensation for a wildfire in 2022 caused by the United States Forest Service.
New Mexico Highlands University, which has about 2,800 students, is seeking compensation from a $5.45 billion fund Congress created to fully compensate victims of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire, the biggest fire in New Mexico history, which started due to two botched prescribed burns on federal land in early 2022.
The wildfire burned more than 530 square miles and destroyed several hundred homes. It also upended life at the university, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday. The lawsuit does not provide a dollar figure, but it lists a variety of losses, including structural damage to university property from flooding and erosion; forced closures; increased insurance premiums; as well as emergency staffing costs for student support and operational expenses.
But rather than applying for compensation made available through the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire Assistance Act, the university’s lawsuit says it is being required to first exhaust another means of covering some of those costs known as the FEMA Public Assistance program.
That program is reserved for public entities like local governments and school districts seeking reimbursement for emergency and infrastructure costs they suffered during a disaster.
It is also notoriously slow, requiring a seven-step approval process.
“The Public Assistance program is a lengthy discretionary reimbursement program, not a compensation program, that is difficult to navigate, can take years to complete, and will not cover all of Plaintiff’s damages,” writes Brian Colón, a former state auditor and lawyer with Singleton Schreiber, which is suing on NMHU’s behalf.
The City of New Orleans is still awaiting some Public Assistance funds from Hurricane Katrina funds in 2005, according to the lawsuit. Here in New Mexico, six bridges damaged in a 2008 flood in Ruidoso were still awaiting repairs by the time post-fire flooding occurred there last year, delays local officials attribute, in part, to Public Assistance challenges.
And the state of New Mexico has awarded $170 million in zero-interest loans in recent years to local governments affected by various recent disasters, a measure meant to counteract delays associated with the FEMA program.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, approval for Public Assistance has also become less certain. This week, FEMA declined to cover 100% of the Public Assistance costs incurred from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and denied the state of Washington’s request for disaster assistance, including Public Assistance, following a bomb cyclone there last year.
Colón, in a brief interview Thursday, said he was unaware of any additional delays or denials for public entities affected by the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire since Trump took office. FEMA officials did not immediately respond to a comment about that or the lawsuit generally on Thursday.
The university is not the first public entity in and around the burn scar to sue FEMA for requiring the extra step. Other plaintiffs include the Mora-San Miguel Electrical Co-operative, Las Vegas City Schools, and the Mora Independent School District. Those cases are all still pending.
As of April 15, the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire Claims Office has paid out $2.25 billion in compensation to individuals, businesses, nonprofits and local governments, which amounts to about 41% of the $5.45 billion Congress awarded. That figure includes $137 million to local governments, most of which was a single payment of $98 million to the City of Las Vegas to replace its water treatment facilities.
The amount paid out via FEMA Public Assistance money is less clear. According to a FEMA website, the agency has obligated a little more than $170 million to local public entities that incurred costs related to the wildfire disaster in New Mexico in 2022. That money goes to public entities in the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire burn scar but also other wildfires that erupted in the state in spring 2022, and it’s not clear how much has been actually paid, not just obligated, so far.
Thousands of pilgrims trek through New Mexico desert to historic adobe church for Good Friday - By Morgan Lee, Associated Press
A unique Holy Week tradition is drawing thousands of Catholic pilgrims to a small adobe church in the hills of northern New Mexico, in a journey on foot through desert badlands to reach a spiritual wellspring.
For generations, people of the Upper Rio Grande Valley and beyond have walked to reach El Santuario de Chimayó to commemorate Good Friday.
Pilgrims, some walking for days, were on track to arrive Friday amid a forecast of cool temperatures and sprinkles of rain.
Some travelers are lured by an indoor well of dirt believed to have curative powers. Throughout the year, they leave behind crutches, braces and canes in acts of prayer for infirm children and others, and as evidence that miracles happen.
Easter week visitors file through an adobe archway and narrow indoor passages to find a crucified Nuestro Señor de Esquipulas at the main altar. According to local lore, the crucifix was found on the site in the early 1800s, a continent away from its analog at a basilica in the Guatemalan town of Esquipulas.
A spiritual place
Chimayó, known for its artisan weavings and chile crops, rests high above the Rio Grande Valley and opposite the national defense laboratory at Los Alamos that sprang up in the race to develop the first atomic weapon.
The iconic adobe church at Chimayó was cast from local mud at the sunset of Spanish rule in the Americas in the early 1800s, on a site already held sacred by Native Americans.
Set amid narrow streets, curio shops and brooks that flow quickly in spring, El Santuario de Chimayó has been designated as a National Historic Landmark that includes examples of 19th century Hispanic folk art, religious frescoes and saints carved from wood known as bultos.
One votive room is filled with notes of thanks from those who say they had ailments cured.
A separate chapel is dedicated to the Santo Niño de Atocha, a patron saint of children, travelers and those seeking liberation and a fitting figure of devotion for Chimayó pilgrims on the go.
Hundreds of children's shoes have been left in a prayer room there by the faithful in tribute to the holy child who wears out footwear on miraculous errands. There are even tiny boots tacked to the ceiling.
Pueblo people who inhabited the Chimayó area long before Spanish settlers believed healing spirits could be found in the form of hot springs. Those springs ultimately dried up, leaving behind earth attributed with healing powers.
A way of life
Photographer Miguel Gandert grew up in the Española valley below Chimayó and made the pilgrimage as a boy with his parents.
"Everybody went to Chimayó. You didn't have to be Catholic," said Gandert, who was among those who photographed the 1996 pilgrimage through a federal grant. "People just went there because it was a powerful, spiritual place."
Scenes from that pilgrimage — on display at the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe — include children eating snow cones to keep cool, men shouldering large wooden crosses, infants swaddled in blankets, bikers in leather and weary pedestrians resting on highway guardrails to smoke.
A generation later, Good Friday pilgrims still haul crosses on the road to Chimayó, as families leave behind cars, push strollers and allow time for older hikers. Throngs of visitors often wait hours for a turn to file into the Santuario de Chimayó to commemorate the crucifixion.
It's just one of hundreds of adobe churches anchoring a uniquely New Mexican way of life for their communities. Many are at risk of crumbling into the ground in disrepair as congregations and traditions fade.
A journey on foot
Pilgrims from nearby towns set out for Chimayó in the predawn hours. Some have walked 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Santa Fe, while others traveled for days from Albuquerque and elsewhere.
Vendors sell religious trinkets, coffee and treats. State transportation workers, law enforcement agencies and other volunteers are stationed along the roadway to ensure safety from oncoming traffic, the outdoor elements and exhaustion.
Pilgrims traverse an arid landscape speckled with juniper and piñon trees and cholla cactus that finally give way to lush cottonwood trees and green pastures on the final descent into Chimayó.
The magnitude of the religious pilgrimage has few if any rivals in the U.S. Many participants say their thoughts dwell not only on Jesus Christ but on the suffering of family, friends and neighbors with prayers for relief.
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
REAL IDs needed real soon for flights, federal building entry - Danielle Prokop, Source New Mexico
Following years of delays, federal and New Mexico officials say starting May 7 any adult wanting to catch a flight or enter certain federal buildings will need to show a driver’s license that meets stricter standards.
REAL IDs, marked with a gold star in the card’s top right corner, require proof of identity, age and residency to the state issuing the card. That often means using original documents such as a birth certificate, social security card and two proofs of address.
Passengers must present the actual physical card, or can use their digital REAL ID at some locations, including the Albuquerque Sunport and the Lea County Regional Airport.
The temporary paper ID issued from the state will not be accepted at the gates, J. Mark Heisey, the federal security director for the Transportation Security Administration, told Source NM Thursday.
If a driver’s license doesn’t meet the requirements, then people will need to use their passports, military-issued ID or other acceptable licenses to fly or enter federal buildings, he said.
The deadline for rolling out the requirements has been repeatedly pushed back since the federal law was first enacted in 2005 — but officials say this time, it’s real.
“The Secretary of Homeland Security is committed to enforcing this law that’s been in place since 2005,” Heisey said. “So, we’re finally at a tipping point.”
People who show up to the airport without a REAL ID driver’s license will face delays at TSA checkpoints, he said.
“Even if you don’t have plans to travel now, your plans can change, so prepare now, as far as what type of photo ID you’ll plan to bring to the airport,” Heisey said.
About 80% of the driver’s licenses issued in New Mexico are REAL IDs, said Stephanie Schardin Clarke, the Secretary of New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue, which oversees the state’s licensing. That means about 370,000 New Mexicans don’t have a REAL ID, and only have the standard driver’s license.
“Not all of them either want or are eligible or need a real ID,” Schardin Clarke said. “Some portion of those 20% might be planning to travel with a passport or other acceptable documentation; for example, some of them might not be eligible for reasons of documentation, and then some might just not plan to travel or enter a federal building.”
More about New Mexico Real IDs
Schardin Clarke said that New Mexico state offices and private Motor Vehicle Division offices are prepared for additional appointments for REAL IDs. All state offices now require an appointment, which can be made online or scheduled over the phone at 1-888-683-3466.
The state also has a frequently asked questions page for the documentation required to get a REAL ID for the first time.
Htet Wint, the director of the Motor Vehicle Division, said the state does require anyone with a name change — from marriage, divorce, adoption, etc. — to bring in additional documents.
“We need all the linking documents,” Wint said. “Like a marriage certificate, divorce decrees, court order, that ties them to that name.”
Physical cards take about two weeks to arrive in the mail. The mobile driver’s license downloaded to a digital wallet in a phone will take 24 hours to update.
Hundreds protest at UNM calling for student and staff support amid Trump demands and funding cuts— Daniel Montaño, Mia Casas
Hundreds gathered outside Scholes Hall on the University of New Mexico campus today as part of a walkout, criticizing what protestors called the university giving into demands from the Trump administration.
As the White House has called for the end of diversity, equity and inclusion policies, threatening funding cuts, UNM recently announced it will review its policies and procedures regarding equal opportunity and discrimination, and released a new draft of its policies regarding affirmative action.
Mark David says that decision was part of why he came out to protest.
“We’re here about freeing Palestine,” he said, “but also were here for the rally against the university possibly changing their policies and ridding themselves of the DEI program that they had here.”
Protestors also called for better protections for students, especially international students, and used the occasion to bring up other long standing grievances.
Justine Kablack, a graduate student and teacher in the art department, says she thinks the university needs to better value its graduate workers.
“Primarily I’m here today as a part of grad work rights,” she said. “We are bargaining with the university this week, primarily asking for an increase in wages and benefits for grad workers.”
The demonstration was part of a larger national day of action organized by the Coalition for Action in Higher Ed, with protests happening at dozens of campuses nationwide.
PNM cuts off power to Las Vegas due to due to high wind and wildfire risk — Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico
The state’s biggest electrical utility said it shut off power to about 2,300 customers in Las Vegas Thursday in a pre-emptive move to prevent wildfires.
PNM says it initiated the “public safety power shutoff” at 11:30 a.m. in the Northern New Mexico town. The outage could last up to 48 hours depending on conditions, officials said.
The area is experiencing extreme fire conditions, thanks to prolonged drought, large buildup of fuel, high temperatures, low humidity and increased winds, according to PNM. A National Weather Service high wind warning says gusts could reach 65 mph.
“The decision to shut off power will be made only as a last resort to protect lives and property from the threat of wildfire,” PNM officials said in a news release earlier Thursday.
All of New Mexico is under either a high wind or Red Flag warning imposed by the National Weather Service, which indicates high wildfire risk. The high wind warning is in effect through most of northwestern New Mexico, including Las Vegas, and the Red Flag warning is in effect everywhere else.
PNM has warned repeatedly this year that it could impose pre-emptive power shutoffs, including in East Mountains of Albuquerque, Las Vegas and elsewhere, though it had not yet done so until Thursday.
The utility has never done a pre-emptive shutoff before, officials said at a recent news conference, but said it is increasingly necessary due to extreme wildfire conditions.
The utility has also been sued for wildfires in recent years, including the McBride Fire in Ruidoso. A law firm accused it of negligence for allowing a tree to be blown onto a powerline it controls, but the utility has denied any liability.