MEXICO CITY – The cardinal said Mass in a shuttered cathedral. Soccer teams played to empty stadiums. A televised variety show filled its seats with cardboard cutouts. Mexico's overcrowded capital locked itself indoors Sunday, terrified by a new strain of swine flu that was spreading around the world. Mexico City residents — chilangos, they're called — are accustomed to living in public view. They eat greasy tacos at stands along smog-choked avenues, play pickup soccer games on potholed streets and snuggle with sweethearts on benches in tree-lined parks.
But on Sunday even the enormous Zocalo plaza, where throngs of families congregate for street performances and open-air concerts, was all but empty. A handful of women wearing surgical masks knelt on the plaza's stones and prayed, their arms reaching upward in a lonely vigil.
Soldiers in surgical masks shooed away the faithful at the cathedral, pointing to a board with pieces of paper.
"There are no baptisms," one read.
"No confirmations," read another.
"No Masses," said a third.
Inside, Cardinal Norberto Rivera delivered a sermon to nearly empty pews, his pleas for divine intervention relayed over television and radio. - Yahoo News Story
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