Centro Ricerche
Socio-Religiose
Padua, Italy
1.
Introduction
and background
From
the history of the Church, we can see that the idea of “holiness” within
Christian tradition and throughout all time was considered to be a full
expression of human life and seemed to be a condition to imitate. It attracted
men as a guarantee of their conversion and as a way of directing themselves to
God.
Soon
Christians began to search not only for the places and the memories of the life
of Christ, but they had the certainty of encountering Him (in His Angels and
Saints). With the development of Marian devotion Christians became pilgrims to
Marian shrines in order to encounter the mother of heaven, the Virgin Mary. At
that point they underlined the function of the Blessed Mother as a model to
imitate, an example to follow, in the itinerary of the mind and heart, in a
trusting and mutual dialogue.
It
is evident that in the past Christians went to shrines for health of mind and
body as well as for their spiritual growth. They were convinced that their
needs were heard, and they were recharged both on an interior and existential
level. At the shrine they were looking for answers and wanted to renew
fundamental existential experiences. In this way Christian pilgrims became
similar to pilgrims of other religions. Pilgrimage, in fact, has always been a
universal symbolic act in which all men rediscover themselves. Throughout time,
in various religions, it seems to always be the same and yet always different.
It has expressed the identity of men throughout history.
This
pertains to the past. For many it was considered to be over and done with. But
something changed in recent times. In various cultural areas and in the great
religions for several decades shrines and pilgrimages have once again become
popular. An ever increasing number of people make their way to holy places, and
new shrines appear.
All
this calls for an intellectual effort in order to systematically analyze this
phenomenon. But to do this we must remember that in all religions pilgrimage
consists of a few fundamental components: a subject who walks a certain path,
who puts himself into motion, who searches; a place of arrival where the
sacred, the divine, is thought to be obtainable; the motivation and the
conviction of meeting the mysterious and ineffable reality that people are
looking for in that place believing it to be real and accessible.
In
different cultures the aforementioned components are variably emphasized, but
are always present and operational. Along with other intervening variables they
contribute to making pilgrimage meaningful and culturally significant.
Within
the Catholic Church, but also in other religions, pilgrims by their movements map
and integrate ritual spaces. The shrines, the paths leading to them, the
facilities inside and outside the shrines, are conceived to create a sacred
environment, where ritual and symbolic interactions take place.
This
environment is very important in presenting visitors and pilgrims with the
opportunity of meeting the sacred interlocutors or the powers of the sacred
place, of getting to know and assimilate their messages and of living these
messages. The motivations of pilgrims, their attitudes and behavior truly
depend on the way the environment is structured. But in some way they are one
and the same with it.
This
means that, by their very nature, pilgrimages and shrines are complex
phenomena. To understand these complex systems a multimedia approach seems to
work best. In this frame of reference it is possible to develop a method of
testing how the sacred environment works.
This
paper presents case studies of pilgrimage in the Catholic Church. The most
important shrines will be considered on a wide basis of empirical data. From
their analysis it will be possible to derive some interesting generalizations
and ideas on the theoretical as well as the methodological level to deepen our
understanding of the field of pilgrimage.
Since
Centro Ricerche Socio-Religiose (C.R.S.R.) of
Padua-Italy collaborates with Centro Studi per
2.
Theoretical
and methodological frame of reference
The research on pilgrimage was
carried out in the theoretical-practical framework of a social communication of
a sacred message presented to the devout and metabolized by them, that is to
say, assimilated to various degrees. The hypothesis is that coming to a shrine
constitutes a religious moment inscribed in the globality of the life of the
visitor and has the function of recharging him existentially, in order to give
meaning and substance to daily routine. Through an experience with the
“radically other” the pilgrim can find, or rediscover, or reinforce his access
and communion with it.
The object of the research was to
reconstruct:
-
who
comes to the shrine and for what reasons;
-
what they knew about the
shrine; what impressions it made; what effect the visit may have on them;
-
what
meaning they attributed to the function of the shrine and its message in
relation to others;
-
the meaning of the gestures
performed at the shrine; how the pilgrims conceived the image of the sacred
interlocutor and what he/she represents;
-
the meaning attributed to the
normal actions of the cult (the sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance);
-
the pilgrim’s normal religious
practices and the differences in his general orientation towards life (values
and philosophy) with respect to the non-devout; the eventual assimilation of
the message of the shrine.
The research was conducted according
to the following time table: St. Anthony in Padua (Italy in 1975-81 and again
in 1991-96); Lourdes (France in 1982-84 and again in 1994-95); Medjugorje (Yugoslavia
in 1985); Fatima (Portugal in 1986 and again from 1994 to 1998); Loreto (Italy
in 1987-88); Our Lady of the Snows - Belleville (U.S.A.) in 1987-88; St.
Leopold Mandic (Italy in 1989-92); Guadalupe (Mexico in 1990-92); Denver
(U.S.A. in 1993); Czestochowa (Poland in 1992-97); Montréal (Canada in
1992-95); Zemaiciu Kalvarija (Lithuania in 1994); Paris (France in 1997);
Trondheim (Norway in 1996-98); Kumba Mhela, Allahahbad (India) in 1995,
Sottoilmonte and Turin (Italy) in 1998, Santiago de Compostella (Spain
1999-2000), and Rome (Italy) in 2000.
The data collected included:
-
10,129
interviews of visitors using questionnaires;
-
718
interviews of the workers at the shrine to verify their image of the pilgrims;
-
approx.12,200
photographs (slides) of the various components of cult behavior of the devout;
-
approx.
70 hours of videotape recording the cult behavior of the devout;
-
approx.
600 recordings of interviews of pilgrims on video and cassettes;
- systematic collection and subsequent analysis of written prayer intentions and ex-voto of pilgrims;
- verification of the preferences of pilgrims in purchasing objects (souvenirs).
3.
The departure point:
pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Anthony of
The sacred interlocutor of pilgrims
and visitors to the shrine of
In 1220, shortly after being
ordained a priest, he became a Franciscan in order to become a missionary in
His skill as an expert on Scriptures
and as a preacher was discovered by chance. His life changed completely. He was
sent to many regions of
He was the first teacher of theology
in the Franciscan order. He was also one of the theologians of the Pope, the
founder of many friaries and was charged with very important tasks in his
order. He had the gift of miracles both while alive and even more so after his
death. He spent his last year in
He died in 1231, was declared a
saint the following year, and his devotion spread rapidly. In
In 1975, within Centro Studi
Antoniani of Padua (C.S.A.), in cooperation with C.R.S.R., a strong interest in
better understanding the phenomenon of devotion to St. Anthony developed. The
aim was to verify whether this devotion was a simple case of popular
religiosity or something more and in what theoretical and methodological frame
of reference the anthonian phenomenon has to be understood.
Following the way certain scholars
(J. Remy and L. Voyè, W. Turner, G. Tilly, etc) in Europe and in the United
States have interpreted pilgrimages in modern times as a process of returning
to one’s roots, to an idealized past, a sort of re-conquering of a lost
identity, but also as a rite of passage through which one accomplishes a
mobilization of individual resources within a collectivity, a procedure which
would adequately study a phenomenon as complex as pilgrimage to the shrine of
St. Anthony was developed.
Therefore, it was believed that the
use of converging approaches (to focus historical background, sacred
environment, ritual and symbolic interactions, attitudes and behavior of people
coming to the sacred space) and methods (interviews, photographs, anthropological
records) can contribute to a better understanding of the structure and the
religious dynamics of the phenomenon. It was also thought that it was necessary
to take into account the premises of Max Weber (according to which religion can
be considered as an independent variable) and Gabriel Le Bras (according to
which it is not possible to study a religious phenomenon isolating it from its
social and cultural environment).
In fact, following the above
premises it was possible to understand the structure and dynamics of the
complex phenomenon constituted by pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Anthony.
Overall, the analysis of its civil and sacred environment has been relevant to
the understanding the whole phenomenon. For that reason the research on St.
Anthony was the model for those that followed.
The research on St. Anthony was
carried out in 1975-81 and repeated (using the same procedure) in 1991-92. Both
studies yielded the same results. They are the following.
The shrine of St. Anthony is placed
in the middle of the city of
With its eight domes and its two
bell towers it is seen from far away. It appears as the defender and protector
of the town, welcoming visitors and inviting pilgrims to quicken their steps to
reach St. Anthony’s shrine.
Inside, the church is structured as
a typical pilgrimage shrine. It gives people the opportunity to visit the tomb
of St. Anthony, pray, listen to Mass, go to confession, see St. Anthony’s
relics, thank him for graces, leave ex-voto (votive offerings) and donations,
and buy souvenirs. Outside, the facilities offering services for pilgrims and
visitors form, together with the shrine, a holy town within the town of Padua
itself in order to keep and continually propose the message of St. Anthony.
The other data collected during the
research confirm that his pilgrims and devotees consider St. Anthony to be like
a brother, a friend of God and others, mainly the poor and suffering. He is
felt to be an effective protector and a help for the many problems of life, a
reliable model of love for God, life, integrity and reciprocity.
4.
The
pilgrimage to the Marian shrine of Jasna Góra, in the Town of
Given the importance of Catholic
shrines dedicated to the Virgin Mary, in the research project on the major
shrines of the Catholic Church a special interest was accorded to pilgrimages
to Marian shrines.
The research on
At
The shrine upon the hill dominating
the town of
The geographical position of the
shrine and its external structures make it a true fortress of the catholic
faith and Polish nationality. This is expressed also by the internal structure
of the shrine, the national flags hanging from the walls, the relics of the
past victories of the Polish Army against the enemies of the faith and the
country. All its paintings and sculpture express and reinforce the conviction
and the feeling that the Virgin Mary is either the Mother of God or the Mother
of the Polish people as well as the Queen of Poland.
Participant observation, visual
records of pilgrim behavior and interview data about their attitudes (see
tables) show that these messages are metabolized and shared by the pilgrims.
This is particularly evident in the great feasts, when many pilgrims (mainly
young people) come on foot from great distances.
In Jasna Góra the public is
decidedly Polish.
The average pilgrim is coming to
He is convinced that he will be
heard and his needs met and, above all, that he will be recharged, interiorly
as well as at the existential level, more than he expected. For that reason he
considers the main roles of the visit to be:
-
the foundation of
values and the source of hope;
-
a way of becoming
recharged, to receive help and to improve one’s love for God.
He considers Mary to be the “Mother
of God” and “Our Mother in Heaven” and also:
- the “dispenser of grace”;
- a “role model”;
- a “sister and friend”.
In other words, the Virgin of Czestochowa
appears as the “Mother of God” who from “Jasna Góra”, the
For the average pilgrim to go to
confession means to be reconciled with God and himself, to grow at the
spiritual and ascetic level and also to get comfort and consolation, to be
reintegrated in the church.
He regularly attends Mass on Sunday
and Holy Days of obligation and even on weekdays.
He gives a great deal of importance
to prayer and to the Sacrament of the Eucharist, which is seen as:
-
a union with God and a
memorial of Christ’s sacrifice;
-
a way to improve
individual devotion and to obtain comfort, consolation and purification.
Regarding
-
the reliability of the
theoretical-practical frame of reference of social communication of a sacred
message in order to verify the dynamics connected to the phenomenon that has
been analyzed;
-
the relationships
between the message of the shrine, its external and internal structure and
settlement, the expectations, the culture and cultural codes, the attitudes and
behaviors of the visitors, devotees and pilgrims.
5.
Pilgrimages
to other major Marian shrines.
Since the other major Marian shrines
of the Catholic Church have many aspects in common with Jasna Góra, it is
possible to summarize what is peculiar to each of them, compare them with Jasna
Góra, other not Marian shrines (in our case St. Anthony of Padua) and comparative
case studies like the World Youth Meeting on Denver (August, 14 - 15th,
1993) in order to derive some theoretical and methodological generalizations
and ideas.
Regarding Loreto, Guadalupe, and
the other Marian shrines and holy places that we have studied the following
information has emerged from the various methods of investigation.
It should be remembered that the
origin of the shrine of Loreto (13th-14th
century) is not an apparition of the Virgin, but the relic of what people
suppose to have been the House of the Holy Family of Nazareth. The message of
Loreto can be understood from the meaning attributed to the Holy House,
considered to have been the place of:
-
the Annunciation to
Mary;
-
the Incarnation of the
Son of God;
-
Christ’s childhood and
youth;
-
the home of the Holy
Family.
At the shrine everything is
organized to receive the pilgrim and take him by the hand towards the heart of
the sacred space, the Holy House. The shrine itself tells its story through
paintings and sculpture. Even the city of
From the gestures of the pilgrims,
Loreto is seen to be decidedly Marian in nature. Inside the Basilica the Holy
House is the center of the pilgrim’s attention. From the geographical
distribution and the group structure of its visitors, Loreto can be seen as a
national shrine, a Common Home of a people who go there in family groupings.
The average pilgrim knows and has
metabolized the story and the meaning of the Holy House.
He goes there to meet his Mother, to
become a better persons and to receive help. He is convinced that he will be
heard and his needs met. He considers the main roles of the visit to be:
-
the foundation of
values and the source of hope;
-
an increased devotion
to Mary,
-
a way to improve one’s
love for God as well as for others and to be recharged.
He considers Mary to be “Our Mother
in Heaven” and the “Mother of God”.
He gives a great deal of importance
to the Sacraments of:
-
Confession, which is
seen above all as reconciliation with God;
-
the Eucharist, which
is seen as a union with God and a memorial of Christ’s sacrifice.
Guadalupe, is the shrine dedicated
to the Virgin Mary which presently has the highest number of pilgrims in the
Catholic Church. Its origin and popularity stem from the four apparitions of
the Virgin to an Indian, Juan Diego (recently declared blessed by the Pope).
They took place from December 9th to
December 12th,1531, ten years after the Spanish conquest of
The message of Guadalupe can be understood from what is written on the facade of the Basilica, which is what the Blessed Mother told Juan Diego: “De que te asuste? Estoy yo aquì que soy tu madre”. Translated: “What are you worried about? I, who am your mother, am here.”
The
shrine is composed of the old and new basilicas, the hill of the first
apparition of the Virgin to Juan Diego, the park near the sacred hill (the
“Tepeyac”), other chapels and religious facilities. A gate divides the shrine
from the surrounding
The heart of the shrine is the image of the Virgin Mary which is considered to have miraculously appeared on the mantel of Juan Diego. This relic is located above the main altar in the new Basilica. All the pilgrims admire it with great devotion.
The average pilgrim turns to that
mother with spontaneous trust and in his native language. In this language the
various cultural roots of the sacred and the profane of
The devotion is still a church
devotion, transmitted and assimilated by means of tradition and a visible and
oral lexicon where the various syntactic and grammatical components of the
various cultures which have united to form the expressive and emotive language
of the Mexicans live on and have been metabolized.
The average pilgrim (see tables)
knows and has metabolized the story of the apparitions and identifies with the
figure of Juan Diego.
The Virgin of Guadalupe -
Thus, Guadalupe appears to be one of
the privileged areas which can verify what is written in the Plaza of the Three
Cultures in
The message of
At
Specific behavior of pilgrims is: to
touch the rock where the Virgin appeared and to take water from the miraculous
spring. A very fundamental element is the presence of the sick.
In
The public is decidedly
international. The sick, the pool and the binomial of water-purification are
fundamental components.
The average pilgrim (see tables)
knows the events that gave birth to the shrine. He is looking for health of
body and soul and even more for spiritual growth and existential renewed. For
him to go to confession, to take a bath in the pool, to visit the grotto, to
participate in processions and the Way of the Cross means to be reconciled with
God and himself, to be purified and to grow in hope.
The origin of Fatima in
The main seer of Fatima, Lucia, is
still alive. She is a Carmelite nun, and only very few people can presently
meet with her. She had other visions and revelations after those of 1917. For
that reason the
At
Compared to
The rituality is related to social
groups, family and tradition. But it appears as an expressive code shared and
deeply assimilated by the people.
The shrine accepts this code and
reinforces it. Prayer and penitence are integrated with offerings and acts of
thanksgiving.
The site is particularly crowded on
the anniversaries of the apparitions, from May 13th to October 13th.
In that period many pilgrims come on foot from far away.
Other data from interviews (see
tables), etc., show that people have accepted and practice the above message in
their behavior and attitudes.
The
shrine of Our Lady of the Snows,
The structure of the holy place in
1986-87 was still in evolution. Its main message was an invitation to everybody
to come and find himself by meeting God, Mary, nature and fellow men.
Consequently, the holy place was not
a sacred space separated from its environment. Rather it was an open field, a
green area without fences, like a great park. Among the trees, the religious
facilities (the Grotto of Lourdes, the
The Main Shrine consisted of a
structure housing an outdoor altar located at the center of an amphitheater.
The religious structures were just as important as those for meditation,
meetings, relax, help for the lonely and handicapped. For the priest and lay
people in charge of the Belleville Shrine one of the main aims was to speak the
language of tradition and of multimedia culture as well.
From the data collected by
interviews (see tables) and other means, it appears that the above goals were
basically achieved. It has been possible to verify that people visiting Our
Lady of the Snows felt at home and welcomed. They appreciated and often shared
not only the services but also the messages proposed by the shrine. It remains
to be seen whether and to what extent they can be considered pilgrims and to
what extent
The research on Medjugorje was done in
1985, only four years after the beginning of the apparitions of the Virgin to
six young people (two boys and four girls of Medjugorje, a
The apparitions started on June 24th
1981, and they continued throughout the period of study. The age of the seers
was from seven to seventeen at the time of the first apparition.
The Church has not made any official
statement about the reliability of Medjugorje. For that reason Medjugorje should
be considered a holy place rather
that a shrine in a strict sense.
The message of Medjugorje is very
much like that of
The heart of the holy space at
Medjugorje was formed by the places of the apparitions of the Virgin and by the
parish church.
Very important in the sacred walk
were:
-
to pray in the chapel
where the apparitions were going on;
-
to go to the hill of
the first apparitions;
-
to attend Mass and
religious ceremonies in the local parish church, listening to the announcements
and explanations of the messages given weekly by the Virgin to the seers during
the apparitions;
-
to visit the seers in
their own houses and to speak with them;
-
to climb the Mount of
the Cross.
Specific
pilgrim behavior at Medjugorje is:
-
to leave religious and
personal objects and to make crosses at the place of the first apparitions;
-
to pick up and take
home stones, flowers, soil.
At Medjugorje the most important
features of the phenomenon were the continuity of the apparitions and their
accessibility while they were still in progress. Medjugorje was very
interesting as a sacred place at its beginning, in a “statu nascenti”
condition.
Among the devout very evident was:
-
a very spontaneous
rituality;
-
a strong wish to be
directly involved in the sacred event, to meet the seers and local people.
At Medjugorje, the penitential
dimension was fundamental. The practice of going to confession was its basic
feature. The presence of youth was a distinctive characteristic.
The data collected (see tables)
confirmed how important it was for visitors and devout:
-
to meet the Virgin
Mary who was continuing to appear;
-
to consider her as the
Mother of God and human beings;
-
to listen to her
messages asking for peace, mutual love, reconciliation;
-
to pray to her as
model of life and queen of peace.
6.
Pilgrimage to
non-Marian Shrines and Other Sacred Journeys
The study made about the shrine of
St. Anthony brought with it the idea of another project in
He
was a capuchin friar who died in 1942 and was declared a saint in 1985. He
spent the whole life listening to confessions.
From the photos and questionnaires
(see tables) it seems that the people going to the shrine are looking:
-
for a relationship
with him, as if he were still alive,
-
for having him being
their spiritual guide who gives council and advice, helps reconcile them with
God, and helps them to be better people.
Pilgrimage to the Oratoire
of St. Joseph is extremely interesting. This shrine is built inside the
town of
It is the largest shrine in the
The shrine is situated on a hill
overlooking Montréal. It constitutes a point of reference for everybody who is
coming to that town.
People going there are looking:
-
for the health of the
soul and of the body as well as for spiritual growth,
-
for recharging oneself
interiorly,
-
for re-founding values
and for meeting others.
The city of
Regarding Santiago of Compostela (
In
The research about
The researches about Oratoire of St.
Joseph and
They are the World Youth Meetings on
Denver (U.S.A.) in 1993 and Paris (
The first research about
In
The
whole town of
Outside the town there was a field
equipped for the Mass with the Pope. The young people had to reach it on foot.
The above sets of components were
intertwined in a complex and dynamic combination of expressive means. Colors,
song, prayers and ever-widening use of mass-media and visual culture shaped a
message destined for an audience composed of young people coming from many
different places but sharing the same basic culture. On the other hand, that
audience seemed to appreciate and share that code.
Regarding
-
-
The motivation of the
participants was religious with a significant social-cultural component (to see
the Pope, meet peers).
-
As with other
pilgrimages, the shared experience gave importance to the religious aspect of
the meeting, but, above all, underlined the sharing of emotions from the common
experience.
-
The youth came from a
common religious background, and considered faith and a sense of moral values
important for today's world.
-
The meeting at
-
However, the
participants did not share the traditional teachings of the Church in several
important areas such as premarital sex, and, most of all, the use of contraception,
remarriage after divorce, and the ordination of women priests.
-
The experience of
The 10th Youth Meeting
took place in
In
The people in
These young people
coming to
In particular, they
experienced this meeting as an occasion to:
-
re-found values,
-
re-discover the
Church.
Lastly, the movement of
people to see the Exposition of the Holy Shroud in
The Holy Shroud,
according to tradition, is the sheet that was used to wrap the body of Christ
for burial.
From the photos and
tables we can clearly see that the visit was directed towards:
-
seeing the Holy
Shroud, in order to relive and assimilate the passion and death of Christ,
-
to better understand
what God has done for us.
7.
Further information
Before drawing conclusions, it is
useful to integrate the above information with the flow of visitors to the
different shrines, according to the estimates by the shrine authorities at the
beginning of each research project.
These are the approximate annual
figures:
-
St.
Anthony: 4
million visitors per year for 1975-81, 70% were pilgrims; 5-6 million visitors
per year for 1991-96, 70% were pilgrims;
-
-
-
-
Loreto: 3.5 million visitors for 1987-88; at
least 2,500,000 of them were pilgrims;
-
-
Guadalupe:
12, perhaps 15-20 million visitors for 1990-92, almost all of them were
pilgrims; there was no official record but Guadalupe is, without comparison,
the most attended of catholic shrines,
-
San
Leopol Mandic: 1-2 million visitors,
-
Oratoire
St. Joseph: 2 million visitors,
-
-
As
to Medjugorje, there is no
statistical information about the year when the research was done (1985). The
phenomenon was at its beginning. According to reliable suppositions between
1981 and 1985 at least 2 million people visited Medjugorje.
In
At
all the places studied the number of visitors and pilgrims has been growing.
That also happened at the two World Youth
Meetings of
8.
Temporary
generalizations
The
above data showed that in the places studied, the phenomenon of pilgrimage is
quite consistent. It follows that even more relevant is the question of how
each shrine welcomes the people coming to it.
Given the different “age”,
morphological structure and sacred environment of each holy place the answer is
not simple. However some analogies are evident:
-
The convergence point
of the attention and flow of visitors is a sacred building or a complex of
sacred buildings belonging to the “shrine type,” with one or two bell towers
(or something of high size similar to a tower) and/or a dome, visible from far
away.
-
The visitors, mainly
the devout, when at the shrine, set out on a walk during which they visit the
places where the message is proposed.
-
The message is
proposed through a set of symbols or relics or places concerning a “sacred
event” (miracles, apparitions, facts) that embody a message or during which a
message was transmitted through one or more intermediates (the seer or the
seers).
-
The message
constitutes the reason and goal of the visit, and the shrine structure is its
eloquent proposal and justification.
-
Visiting the places
and through a set of rites correlated with the sacred event or the sacred
memory (the sacred relic) the devout wishes to participate in some way in
this event or memory and assimilate its message.
The analysis (made through
participant observation and recorded on slides and videotape) of behavior of
people attending the sacred places pointed out some recurrent characteristics.
-
Together the pilgrims
experience a deep but personalized communication with a sacred interlocutor and
in some way this also touches mere visitors.
-
That communication has
the authority of the Church’s institution as its frame of reference and the
Church’s prayers and sacraments as its ritual code.
-
The folkloric
dimension of the feast is something
not directly related to the pilgrimage as such, or like at Loreto, Guadalupe
and
All together, the data from various
pilgrimages analyzed to date indicate:
-
Pilgrimage constitutes
a religious and human experience founded in the entirety of the pilgrim’s life.
-
Through this
experience the visitor reinforces or rediscovers or for the first time finds
access to a communion with the “radically other”.
-
As a consequence, the
pilgrim feels recharged.
-
Daily routine takes on
meaning and substance and becomes an occasion for meeting, reconciling and
sharing with others and with himself.
The data collected and analyzed
about the pilgrimages considered in this paper, confirmed the starting
hypothesis.
They suggested that even
contemporary people, because of the cost involved in living in today’s society,
need to participate in a sacred moment that gives them the chance to
communicate with a reality which may be not as contingent and precarious as is
the daily, historical and profane part of their lives. In other words, humans,
as such, have an innate religious component.
Because of this, the prospect of
modifying the profane by introducing
a sacred moment may be seen as
normal. Pilgrimage should be considered a privileged means and time, at the
social and cultural level, to experiment with that possibility in a real and
concrete way.
One of the most successful means of
verifying the above data seems to have been the special multimedia approach to
the complex phenomenon of contemporary pilgrimages within the Catholic Church.
It might be interesting to test how
this approach could be used to understand the same phenomenon in other
religions and, at the same time, to see how other approaches from other
religious contexts may be useful to better understand Catholic pilgrimages and
pilgrimages in general.
9.
A new open frontier.
With this perspective we might also give new meaning to a phenomenon
like the one we have analyzed during the last years. That is the traditions
connected to St. Olav and the Nidaros
Cathedral in
It is clear that this site was important as a shrine for pilgrimage in
earlier times. The figure of St Olav as the rex
perpetuus Norvegiae, the Eternal King of
Maybe one should now collect information to try to give a broader and
more integrated and consistent picture of the phenomenon.
For several centuries the Vikings and the Normans created a sphere of
wide cultural expansion in medieval
This formed a Norman Network of places and connections with a
cultural influence affecting all of
What
is important is the fact that from the south of that Norman network the
different impulses were able to reach also
In
that frame of reference two events appear not to be incidental.
Snorre,
in the saga about Harald, the half-brother of St. Olav, writes that during his
stay in Constantinople, before he became king of
Moreover,
nor is it incidental that there is a striking similarity between the
Norman-Romanesque cathedrals in
The
historical facts given by the Snorre saga and the architectural similarities
are testimonies in mutual agreement. They open new historical perspectives to
all of us. They show a network of mutual relations encompassing not only people
and countries of Viking and Norman culture and blood, but many other nations
and contexts.
This
also leads us to consider the saga of Snorre very much more reliable at the
historical level than supposed. At the same time, it suggests the importance of
considering as historical sources not only written records.
This
frame of reference reveal interesting traits that can be pursued in order to
better understand how rooted in popular culture are and were the traditions
that go back to St. Olav. For several reasons these traditions never
disappeared completely, neither with the reformation.
This also leads us to the questions about Olav traditions in our time
and in our present context.
Is it a phenomenon merely on a cultural level? In other words, are they
an eruption of a sediment of knowledge that has always been alive, alimented by
the saga, and once again reactivated in the last century by the nationalistic
movements, and by the restoration work of the cathedral that started in the
middle of the 19th century?
Or is it something that is more complex and dynamic? Should we connect
it to the crisis of modern culture and the transition to the so-called postmodern? Should we relate it to the
celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the founding of
Is this confirmed by the fact that a new concrete symbolic and religious
language seems about to be established again among the people, a language that
makes it meaningful to light candles – votive candles – also in the Nidaros
cathedral?
What do people think when they walk into the cathedral during the St.
Olav Festival, and what do they think when they are walking out again? What
feelings do the St. Olav Festival, the historical plays, and the liturgical
rituals that are connected with St. Olav, awaken in those who participate? And
where will they lead in a possible future development?
These are very interesting questions.
Maybe the investigations we now are completing and analyzing (see
tables) might give us some answers. For the moment, at Nidaros the aspects,
which have fundamental importance for people, seem to be:
-
the encounter with the
building of the cathedral,
-
the visit to it,
-
the experience of a
spiritual atmosphere that gives the chance to feel an interior-existential
growth by rediscovering one’s roots and traditions, as well as one’s cultural
and national identity.
In
collaboration with
Martin
Donach, Gustav Erik Gullikstad Karlsaune, Gioia Lanzi, Stefania Mezzadra