Kathar1na: (beautiful name by the way, sans the "1")
Your comments are correct, if the
Camino de Santiago was a purely secular, tourist undertaking, like a hike in the park, albeit long. Please allow me to expound...get comfortable folks...
To begin, please read the history of the Way of St. James. Wikipedia is a great place to start, at least in this instance. Follow some of the included references at the bottom of the article to learn more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camino_de_Santiago
The
Camino de Santiago is first and foremost a Christian (pre-reformation) pilgrimage to a holy site. Depending on who you quote, it is presently the third or fourth most popular pilgrimage site in all the Christian world.
Christians have been making pilgrimage to the remains of the Apostle Saint James the Greater (one of the original 12 Apostles) located in a silver casket under the great altar in the Cathedral since around 850 AD. While popularity waned due to external influences, over the centuries, it increased in the late 20th century as writers and reporters started reporting on their experiences.
In 1987 UNESCO (a United Nations organization) named the
Camino de Santiago a world heritage site. That designation broadened the curiosity of the world, writ large, about the Camino. This also heightened the interest of writers and tourists from around the world.
Most people continue to do a Camino for a spiritual or religious reason. Though a cradle-Catholic, who attended Catholic schools until high school, I was totally unaware of the
Camino de Santiago, or its vital importance to world history, or to the development and preservation of Western Civilization as we know it, until my 59th year. I spent my 60th birthday at the noon Pilgrim Mass at the Cathedral having walked the 775 km "spine" of the classic Camino routes, from St. Jean Pied de Port in France. It was, and remains a life changing and life asserting accomplishment for me. My four subsequent Caminos have only served to punctuate that first achievement.
The UNESCO designation, as well as Spain's adoption of the
Camino de Santiago as part of its essential patrimony, or cultural heritage, caused interest to increase further.
Back in the Middle Ages, judges all over Europe would sentence people to serious punishment for some crime, OR they could walk the Camino for penitence. Hang or walk... Other folks walked the Camino to fulfill a vow. As now, there were many reasons to make this arduous and often one-way journey.
As a result, the Church began to issue written documents written in Latin, called Compostelas, to document the arrival of the pilgrim at Santiago. The first Compostelas would have been written parchment or linen. The pilgrim, under sentence or other court order, would have to return to their home, usually on foot, to produce the Compostela to avoid the harsher sentence imposed. Remember, this was at a time when very few people could read or write in any language. So, monks and priests wrote out Compostelas for pilgrims to take to show to their priest or official at home who could read Latin.
Over time, the Compostela was less proof of doing something to avoid a death sentence or something as draconian, and more a valuable record of accomplishing something that was considered awesome for the day. Back in the day, this accomplishment might be the literal high-point of a person's entire life.
Today, the Pilgrim Office at Santiago continues to issue the exact same language Compostela, with your name in Latin if a Latin variant exists. This documentation service is FREE, provided the arriving pilgrim follows the simple rules set forth by the Cathedral / Church.
And we come full circle in our rationale for caring...
Also, Pilgrims were and still are frequently buried with their scallop shell around their neck. You can still walk through ancient graveyards across Western Europe and see gravestones with scallop shells engraved in them to indicate that the person resting here was a pilgrim to Santiago. It meant something, at a time when people rarely strayed far from their birthplace over their entire lives. Many of these people walked well over 1,500 kilometers to get to Santiago. THEN they had to walk back. Untold thousands are buried along the routes in anonymous graves.
At Santiago, the hedge maze to the left of Igrexia de San Frutuoso, at the bottom of the ramp from Plaza Obradoiro, is the old Pilgrim Graveyard. It is the final resting place for pilgrims who died at Santiago after arrival. Ill pilgrims were housed in what is now the Hotel Parador.
When they died, they were placed in a cart and rolled down the ramp to San Frutuoso for a final Mass before a Christian burial in the field adjacent to the church. The hedges came much, much later. But, I consider that is still hallowed ground, sanctified by the suffering and sacrifices of the many thousands laid to rest, many anonymously, in that plot of soil.
I suspect that, over time, we have come to take the collective suffering and sacrifice by untold millions of pilgrims for granted. Personally, I try not to forget, and I offer a prayer of thanks whenever I pass the old graveyard when I am at Santiago.
At present, many pilgrims do a Camino for sport, tourism, as an athletic challenge, to study Spanish culture, history, architecture, and social patterns. There are many other reasons I am sure. All these reasons are valid. However, IMHO, the original purpose of the existence of most all the Camino routes continues to be the essence of what started it all, well over one-thousand years ago.
The Catholic Church (regardless of your personal belief) factually predates the establishment of a unified Spain by hundreds of years. As a consequence of this preeminence, they attained and retain some significant stature across Spanish culture. Today, Spain and Portugal remain two of the "most Catholic" countries in all of what was formerly a totally Catholic Europe. The Church still maintains a treasured place among most Spanish and Portuguese people. By respecting the rules, we respect this patrimony and heritage.
While secular civil authorities may disagree and resist some of what the Church determines is proper, it nonetheless is within its rights to determine under what conditions and circumstances it, via the Pilgrim Office and staff (all part of the Cathedral hierarchy), will do to commemorate or record the accomplishments of the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from around the world who make this journey annual.
All pilgrims are welcome. But all are expected to behave like good quests when visiting in a foreign country (Spain is, except to Spaniards). We are all expected to follow all the laws, rules, regulations, and local standards for good behavior. By extension, this includes complying with the rules set forth by the Cathedral / Church if you desire their documentation. The Cathedral / Church may not own the actual Camino routes, but they do "own" the documentation process.
If (and I say this with respect for differences among all peoples) you or anyone else do not care about sellos, credentials, Compostelas, the pilgrim arrival rituals, etc., then go in peace and enjoy your holiday adventure. But, please do not denigrate it for the majority of us who "get it." Also, please do not add to the congestion to obtain a Compostela or Certificate of Distance if it does not matter to you. Please allow your "space" in queue to be used by someone who values it highly.
IMHO, We must remember where "we" have all come from on our Camino. To forget is to disrespect the efforts, sacrifices and sufferings of all those who came before us.
Buen Camino...y Vaya con Dios
