Prayer Pilgrimage for Peace: Reimagining el Santuario de Chimayó

Abstract: For generations, devotees have gathered at the place today known as el Santuario de Chimayó, a shrine in New Mexico, for healing, renewal, and connection to the divine. In 1983, pilgrim activists began a new pilgrimage tradition—one that centered on carrying the famous healing dirt from the Santuario de Chimayó to Los Alamos, a site associated with the U.S. nuclear weapons program since 1943. This pro-peace, antinuclear Prayer Pilgrimage for Peace emerged during the late-twentieth-century Santuario pilgrimage movement. It aligned with Pax Christi actions across the U.S., sought to address communal and environmental harms, and represented a new kind of Santuario pilgrimage, one sustained by interethnic and interfaith coalition-building.