At the hour set for the procession on 9 November 2026, heavy rain kept the image of the Virgin of Almudena inside Madrid’s Cathedral of Santa María la Real de la Almudena. The outdoor route through central Madrid was suspended. Instead, the image was carried through the building as march music played and the congregation applauded. The Mass had been scheduled for 11 a.m., with Cardinal José Cobo presiding.
The change followed Cardinal José Cobo’s appeal during the feast-day Mass to replace divisions with solidarity. He asked worshippers to become “the new columns that Madrid needs”, a phrase translated from Spanish, and said the city needed people who build rather than destroy. After the Mass, Cobo announced that the image would remain in the cathedral and urged the faithful to carry the Virgin’s message through Madrid’s neighbourhoods “desde el corazón”, meaning from the heart.
Cobo connected that appeal to the 400 columns hidden in the cathedral’s crypt, which support the building. They brought to mind, he said, people who sustain others quietly through care and work. He thanked people supporting families and neighbourhoods, as well as those serving parishes and Christian communities, including people involved in public life.
The archbishop said that walls can be raised to shield people from those who think or live differently. In a society marked by wars and violence, amid division, he warned, “the different person becomes an enemy”, translated from Spanish. He urged Christians to express their convictions without destroying others and to defend the truth without humiliating anyone.
His message also drew on words attributed in the supplied account to Pope Leo XIV during a visit to Madrid: “disarm words and speak words that disarm”, translated from Spanish. Cobo said this did not mean abandoning convictions or failing to denounce injustice. Instead, he called for disagreement without treating others as enemies.
The Mass was held inside the cathedral because of the rain. More than 200 priests attended, alongside civil authorities. Senate president Pedro Rollán and regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso were among them, as was Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida, who pronounced the city’s vow, the Voto de la Villa. The vow proceeded inside the cathedral despite the suspension of the outdoor procession. The congregation included an Almudena attending with her daughter and granddaughter; all four generations of her family shared the name of Madrid’s patron.
The Almudena feast is Madrid’s annual celebration of its patron saint, traditionally combining a solemn Mass with a procession around the cathedral. The planned route began at the cathedral and ran along Bailén, Mayor and Santiago streets, then through Plaza de Santiago, Plaza de Ramales and Requena, before returning to the temple. Organizers had made the procession conditional on the weather, saying it would take place “si la lluvia lo permite”, meaning if the rain allowed it.
The city’s 2026 festivities ran from 6 to 10 November, with religious ceremonies and food-related events alongside concerts and traditional performances. The programme also included 1,000 free portions of the Corona de la Almudena, the traditional sweet associated with the feast. The procession was one part of the wider schedule. The rain kept the Virgin’s image off the streets, while the Mass and the mayor’s renewal of the Voto de la Villa went ahead.
The Madrid service was one of several forms of Catholic observance in Spain; a separate ceremony in Santander saw Cardinal Marcello Semeraro lead the beatification of 80 martyrs, as reported in coverage of the Santander ceremony.
After explaining that the procession could not go outside, Cobo urged those present to carry its meaning into local communities and institutions, including parishes, workplaces and universities. The image was then borne along the cathedral’s transept facing Bailén Street, where the congregation applauded.
