It's a pilgrimage her father had undertaken that had profoundly changed his life.

Sanborn, a rebel and adventurer by nature (she dropped out of college to meditate in India for a year), quit her job, gave up health insurance and pooled her savings to take two months to walk the Camino.

By the third day of her walk, she promised herself she'd return every year.

Nine months later, she was back, guiding her first group of eight pilgrims.

A pilgrimage for everyone

A decade after her first pilgrimage, now 45 and residing in the Bay Area, Sanborn leads grief walks and walking meditations on the Camino with the travel company she founded, Red Monkey Walking Travel.

The red monkey is a nod to Hanuman, the Hindu god of joyful service.

Raised Tibetan Buddhist, Christian and Jewish, Sanborn considers herself all three. She believes everyone can find a way for the Camino to work for their religion.

"We have had everyone from devout Catholics to atheist Chinese nationals," said Sanborn.

"The Camino for the last 1,000 years was always open to everyone from all religions.

"Some of my first Camino friends walked from Iran. Iran! And stopped in or outside every locked church and read Rumi poems."

Sanborn represents a growing trend of non-Catholic — even non-Christian — pilgrims venturing on the Camino.

In 2023, nearly half a million people walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

About 40 percent of those walked for purely religious reasons, according to statistics released by the pilgrims' office.

While it's traditionally a Catholic pilgrimage, ending at the shrine of the apostle James in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, secular pilgrims today embark on the Camino.

They have all kinds of motivations beyond religion: health, grief, transition, cultural exploration, history and adventure.

Purposeful vacationing

Sharon Hewitt of St. John's in Newfoundland, Canada, walked part of the Camino in the fall of 2016 with two friends.

Her motivation was to spend time with friends and take a "purposeful" vacation.

Hewitt doesn't consider herself religious but recognised a type of devotion in the rituals and challenges of the eight days of walking.

"I didn't do it for religious reasons, but there is overlap," says Hewitt.

"A lot about religion is discipline, just like the Camino. After a hard night, you still get up and go on."

This synthesis of religious and secular motivations is profound for people like Nancy Mead, president of The Friends of the Anglican Centre in Santiago de Compostela, an ecumenical religious organisation.

Mead, an Episcopalian who lives in Rhode Island, says there are as many reasons why people walk the Camino as there are people who walk it.

While the Camino is a religious experience for her, she has also learned life lessons along the way that apply to everybody, religious or not.

She's walked seven different routes on the Camino and has to remind herself each time to lighten her load; makeup and extra clothes are just added weight on the journey.

Secular spirituality

The number of "spiritual but not religious" pilgrims on the Camino has increased over the past two decades as the demographic has grown and with the emergence of "secular spirituality."

Jacqui Frost, whose research at Purdue includes health and wellbeing among the nonreligious, says researchers are increasingly using the language of spirituality to talk about secular experiences of feeling connected to something greater than yourself .

This is something that, she says, often happens in nature.

"We have started to secularise a lot of what used to be religious rituals," said Frost.

"Think about meditation, yoga or even atheist churches. A lot of people are interested in rituals and finding meaning in these collective events."

As this growing spiritual but not religious group borrows religious rituals and beliefs, there is a question of how to do so without appropriating them.

Many of the reasons nonreligious people go on the Camino are similar to why religious people go.

In a 2019 study in the "Sociology of Religion" journal, researchers examined atheists' versus religious pilgrims' motivations to walk the Santiago way.

They found overwhelming overlap across motivations; most were looking to connect to nature and one's deeper self.

The only two measures that differed were community and religious motivations, which were both higher for religious pilgrims.

Religious ethics expert and author of the forthcoming book "The Religion Factor: How Restoring Religion to Our Spirituality Makes It More Meaningful, Responsible, and Effective," Liz Bucar has this to say:

The growing number of spiritual but not religious pilgrims represents a need for meaning-making, even when you've rejected religion.

But she doesn't think it's as easy as just dropping the religion part and isn't so sure you can still get the same benefits without it.

"If you want to get the real meat out of pilgrimage, you have to engage with the religion of it," says Bucar.

"Spirituality is what they are calling the pieces of religion that they like. Religion is part of the secret sauce."

After all, Bucar says, pilgrimage is spiritual tourism.

She describes the Camino today as a "curated, socially constructed experience with institutions involved."

Bucar used to lead college students on the Camino but came to believe the trip fed into an idea that you can access this spiritual connectedness or transcendence through participating in a temporary experience.

She says the Camino falls into this category, which her new book is about, of these spiritual hacks and shortcuts people take when they "don't want to do religion."

Bucar required the students to write an application essay for the class, and most cited the desire to have a transformative experience as their reasoning for wanting to walk the Camino.

"They're looking for a quick fix, an experience that will change their life," she said.

Broader context

Bucar's not opposed to taking students again. But she'd do it differently.

Instead of focusing on the inward journey, she'd encourage her students to study the historical context of the routes and the contentious parts of history that the official Spanish tour guides might be leaving out.

After all, St. James is also known as Santiago Matamoros, the "Moor-slayer."

You won't hear about the story of Matamoros helping Charlemagne murder Muslims from a tour guide. Bucar would put the construction of historical narratives front and center.

"I'd make it less fun for them and less of an ‘experience.'

"It's much more valuable to have these experiences be uncomfortable and disorienting," said Bucar. "You have to engage with the religion of it."

Camino part of life's mystery

For Sanborn, Christianity will always be at the heart of the Camino — even for those bringing a different religion or no religion to their pilgrimage — though she agrees with Bucar that Christianity on the Camino has not always been beautiful.

"I think it's important to honor the Christianity of the Camino, and appreciate the traditions and amazing art and architecture of the Camino.

"But the Camino also walks over both where over 80 people were taken from their mountain homes and the city where they were burnt at the stake.

"So I think it's important to see the best and worst of religion," said Sanborn.

"Each time I step into a church or cathedral on a hot day, it feels impossible to not be awed."

However, Sanborn resists the idea that non-Catholic pilgrims — "sometimes people call them tourist-pilgrims" — are unable to experience what the Camino has to offer.

"Everyone I have ever met along the Camino is getting more than they expected, so it's probably best not to judge," she said.

"The Camino is just so special in ways I don't pretend to understand, which is part of the great mystery of life. It's magic."

• First published by Religion News Service
• Ellie Davis is an author at Religion News Service.

Hivert - described as "a most extraordinary pilgrim" is due to arrive at the shrine in northwestern Spain on October 27th after joining a group of friends to walk the final 21 kilometers. They began the pilgrimage back in 2001.

The petite Hivert, an avid hiker, has astonished people by her stamina. She was featured two years ago in the pages of La Charente Libre as a ray of winter sunshine, with her walking stick in hand, short hair blowing in the wind and a broad smile on her face. Read more

They are offering guidelines to those who host the pilgrims suggesting how they can welcome and care for their spiritual needs. Read more

French and Spanish bishops released a pastoral letter setting out the possibilities of evangelisation of those travelling the route.

The bishops admit that 70 per cent of those walking the Camino are not religious pilgrims.

Travel companies are moving in to make the trip "a cultural and tourist route like any other".

To counter this, the bishops suggested that parishes along the Way of St James should do more to support the pilgrims and strengthen their faith.

"Go out along the route to evangelise, welcome all you meet, invite them to visit your churches, explain to them the faith and the art of your altars, open a space for dialogue, take care of them personally," the letter said.

Continue reading

In April, American Denise Thiem, 41, went missing after last being seen near the church of Santa Marta in Astorga.

She was walking along the Camino Francés, one of the most popular of the pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela.

Spanish police say the investigation into her disappearance remains open, and family and friends have also organised their own searches of the area.

Late last month, a woman jogging near a popular spot for pilgrims was accosted by two men who attempted to force her into a car.

The administrator of an English-speaking online forum for the pilgrimage, Ivan Revke, said incidents of "improper behaviour" had been reported on a 24km stretch between Astorga and Rabanal del Camino.

He said pilgrims should walk in pairs or groups.

The Camino was, he said, a very safe place "but it only takes a few to make the situation more uncertain".

Local authorities have also recommended that pilgrims avoid travelling alone along the most remote sections of the route.

"It's for precaution, we understand there isn't any danger," said local mayor, Victorina Alonso.

She urged pilgrims to stay calm, noting that all of the incidents were being treated as isolated cases until the police found otherwise.

Residents have told local media that this wasn't the first they had heard of incidents like the attempted abduction.

There have been complaints about a lack of security in the area.

A German pilgrim reported being deceived by a false "arrow" sign and walking to an area where a masked man attacked her with a stun gun, but she was able to flee.

Spanish police confirmed that someone had been arrested in connection with the case.

Sources

• The Tablet
• Irish Times
• Image: Farodevigo

Many people on the walk, he said, wanted to talk to him about his role as a Bishop, and his experience of God.

He was surprised that monasteries and churches appeared not to engage with pilgrims, and a final Mass he attended notably failed to invite pilgrims to reflect on their journey.

‘People are hungry to talk about faith', he said ‘but not interested in the institution of the church'.

Bishop Justin was addressing the Synod of the Wellington Anglican Diocese which took place last weekend in Palmerston North.

Bishop Justin continued, ‘People want to engage with issues of faith, but they do not want to belong to an institution. People want deeply to belong, and they want to be gathered around the table, to be called in from the highways and byways'.

‘We need to change our culture', he said. ‘How we do things is just as important as what we do; if we get the right culture, then the other stuff will flow'.

Bishop Justin made three points:

• We are family, not ‘islands'.
• We cannot disciple people unless we are disciples ourselves.
• We are a church of the lost, last, least, and a church that prioritises the proclamation of the Gospel, good news to the poor.

Source

• Anglican Taonga
• Image: Synod News

Now, over 200,000 people a year spend several gruelling weeks along the route.

Traditionalists turn up their noses at the crowds, but the rewards are still vast.

In the Middle Ages, pilgrimages were neither a quest for meaning, nor an opportunity for contemplation, nor an event.

People had real worries and pilgrimages were part of a deal.

On the one hand was the willingness of the faithful to suffer, on the other was God's capacity for deliverance.

The one walks, the other heals — a transaction based on reciprocity.

Similar to mendicants, pilgrims had no possessions beyond what they carried with them: a walking stick, a small sack of belongings, a gourd full of drinking water and the clothes on their back.

They were filled with reverence and, not uncommonly, a thirst for adventure.

The grave of St. James in Santiago de Compostela has been a pilgrimage site for over 1,000 years.

When times were quiet, only a dozen people would make the effort.

At other times, it would be a couple of thousand.

But the quiet years are over.

More than 200,000 people followed the Way of St. James last year. And this year, those who make money from the steady stream of wayfarers are in a particularly celebratory mood.

Four million copies of the book "I'm Off Then: Losing and Finding Myself on the Camino de Santiago" by German TV celebrity Hape Kerkeling have been sold in Germany, and its impact has been huge: Since its publication in German nine years ago, Germans have made up the largest share of foreigners making the pilgrimage.

Last year, according to church statistics, 16,000 of them turned up in Santiago, a new record. And now, German public television station ARD is making the movie. Continue reading

Source

• Article and image: Spiegel Online

No petitions have been sent heavenward asking for your safekeeping. Not even any candles lit on your behalf.