Compostela

The walking pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, is an ancient Catholic practice whose origins go back to the ninth century CE, the Spanish struggle against the Moors, and the political need for a national building project. According to legend, the destination is believed to be the final resting place of the Apostle James.

For this long journey, the bodily and emotional experience is central. The Spanish road El Camino Francés is presently the most frequented itinerary, lasting about 800 km and undergoing a noteworthy revival since the late 1980s. Four much longer pilgrimage roads also cross Europe, going to Compostela.

The participants certified by the Oficina de Sociología de Santiago de Compostela, the official statistical source, were about 100 in 1984; since then the number has grown considerably, and 114,026 pilgrims walked the road in 2007. Moreover, the Camino had particular success during recent holy years. For the jubilee of 1993, there were 99,436 pilgrims. In 1999, for the end of the millennium, there were 154,613 pilgrims, and in 2004, they surpassed 181,036. A relevant trait of this revival is the internationalization of this traditional European pilgrimage. Spain remains the principal country furnishing pilgrims—around 60% of the participants, and this increased significantly during holy years. European countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, and Portugal furnish a very significant number of walkers. However, since the second millennium, the Spanish presence has tended to decrease because of the presence of pilgrims coming from outside Europe and setting out on this journey from all over the world. Every year somewhere between 4,500 and 6,000 North or South Americans as well as Africans, Asians, and Oceanians walk the Camino.

The attraction of the road to Santiago bears witness to the successful encounter between a renewed effort of pastoralization, the interests of religious tourism agents, and the demand by an international and intergenerational public. Altogether, an astonishing growth in the number of elderly participants has been observed, especially of retired persons. In recent decades, young adults were the largest group. This kind of participation suggests a reason for the contemporary global success of the pilgrimage to Compostela: This road, which especially attracts individuals who are in a suspended professional period—either not yet employed or else retired—represents a concrete metaphor of “going forth” in life. The desire for religious experience and the quest for identity are elements of the motivation for setting out on this journey. The Way of St. James as a voluntary, adaptable, individual ritual fits well in the spiritual demand of a large number of seekers, who were brought up as Catholics or Protestants but who have distanced themselves from the church's institutional position. The same ritual walk embraces different kinds of religious participation. While some define themselves as Catholics, longing to embrace the Apostle James in the cathedral, others claim to be pilgrims according to their own way, looking for a spiritual experience based on the shift from external regulation of truths and rites to subjective emotions and beliefs.