This year, the unions and business association chose to move the holiday on Dec. 6 celebrating the approval ofthe country's constitution following a four-decade dictatorship to a Monday rather than risk angering thechurch again by shifting the public holiday on Dec. 8, the Feast oftheImmaculateConception.
The time of this project coincided with a large Marian trend: in 1661, Pope Alexander VII declared theImmaculateConception (though it didn't become a dogma ofthechurch until 1854).