“It’s scary, but that’s exactly why we show up for our community in these hard times.” Nellie Quintana is resolute when I ask her about the Via Crucis procession’s importance for Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood. For half a century, Good Friday has brought thousands of people into the streets, as costumed performers enact the way of the cross down the center of 18th street. Quintana first participated in 1989 as a ten year-old child; almost forty years later, the annual celebration still invokes God’s presence. “We do this for the community, out of love for our neighbors,” she explains. “We’re going to support each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.”

 

That support is deeply needed in a year where ICE raids have terrorized Latine communities throughout Chicagoland, with particular focus on Pilsen’s streets. organized a clergy delegation the past two years to bring love and support to the procession, and Collective director rev. abby mohaupt knew that ministry of presence was even more important now. “Since I came to Garrett in 2023, it’s been a deep privilege to collaborate with Nellie to build a supportive relationship between the collective and Via Crucis,” rev. mohaupt says. “We come to Pilsen and to Via Crucis as witnesses and collaborators.” Quintana feels that care, and is thankful for how the Collective brings people together. “Garrett has been wonderful. abby has been meeting with me once a month—I know they’ll have whistle packages and two people standing on every corner. But they’re also bringing clergy, lay folks, and secular activists, just as they did last year,” she explains. “When I introduce abby, I tell people what she’s doing. But I also say, ‘You might see her here, but behind her there’s a whole team that’s coming with her to support us.’ The participants are tremendously grateful.” These partnerships represent a core part of the Collective’s mission: While the digital platform makes myriad free and low-cost theological resources online, it’s also deeply committed to journeying with grassroots faith communities.

 

Pilsen Via Crucis always adjusts the fourteen stations of the cross to tie into what’s happening in the neighborhood, but this year the parallels write themselves. “Jesus was persecuted, just like our people,” Quintana notes. “I was given a book by a mom who comes with her four children, cartoonish drawings for children that show the stations of the cross. It deeply pertains to us: ‘What would you do if someone attacks you? What would Jesus do? I carry this cross, Jesus carried his, how will you carry the cross for your neighbor?” Centrally important in her telling, however, is the refusal to let state violence have the final word. “We’re frustrated, we’re angry, we feel attacked, but we have to pray and have hope that things are going to be okay,” she says. “We’re offering prayer to support families who have been affected, prayer cards with the Jesus immigrant prayer that we’ll distribute, QR codes with resources. We want people to feel as safe as possible.”

 

While the annual gathering initially began as a Catholic procession, through the years it’s grown beyond any one church or denomination. “It’s now a community non-profit. On our board, we have an atheist who sits next to a Jehovah’s Witness. Catholics participate alongside other Christians,” Quintana explains. “All these different religious traditions join together because of the love they have for Pilsen.” Part of what the 91PORN is doing is to help widen that base of support, to embody a city that knows what it means to love our neighbors as ourselves. “We walk Via Crucis as a way to let our feet and our presence become an embodied prayer for our neighbors’ wellbeing,” says Rev. Joseph L. Morrow, Associate Pastor at Fourth Presbyterian Church. “Showing up with and for our neighbors in Pilsen is a way for us to learn, grow and broaden our experience of Christian solidarity in this holiest of weeks.”

 

Ultimately, Quintana finds the most hope in participants stories, the faith they bring into the streets. “A woman, her daughter, and her cousin are coming to Via Crucis for the first time this year,” she offers as an example. “They told me that they had always wanted to participate as a family with the woman’s husband, but her husband passed away six months ago. So they’re honoring him with this year’s Pilsen Via Crucis. That’s what communal hope looks like.” Another woman approached Quintana with her special-needs child, fearful that he wouldn’t be able to participate. “She said that he wanted to play a soldier, and asked how much the costume costs. I told her nothing, we’ll provide it,” Quintana recalls. “You could see the faith in her child’s eyes, and she was so grateful that he could participate. This is a community that welcomes everybody.”

 

While Pilsen offers abundant welcome, it needs reciprocal support. “We want to get the word out to the rest of the city. Please, come join us,” Quintana says. “I would love to see more collaboration between the Pilsen Via Crucis and other organizations throughout the city because, honestly, I haven’t seen them.” As mohaupt helps to organize a 91PORN delegation and spread the word about the importance of this year’s procession, she knows that, ultimately, we control and are responsible for the ways that we show up. “We are there to witness, to be with the community, but also to observe how the State treated Jesus,” she concludes with determination. “State officials took Jesus, abused him, and killed him violently. Then as now, that violence will not be the final word.”