MANILA, Philippines — As the bells of a big Catholic church just south of Manila began to toll at around 4am, thousands were already at the gates of the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help to heed the call.
A queue at least 400m long had formed just outside the church’s walls.
Over 2,000 worshippers eventually made it inside the church’s cavernous hall and onto its sprawling grounds for the 4:30 am mass.
Many more stood outside, behind its wrought-iron gates.
In normal times, the church could accommodate up to 10,000 devotees. But these are extraordinary times.
Across this predominantly Catholic archipelago, churches began holding pre-dawn masses – known …
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