Chairman's Report for 2010
The following report was delivered at the Confraternity's AGM on 22 January 2011, and will be published in a forthcoming Bulletin. You may quote reasonable extracts without permission, though we would appreciate an acknowledgement. For more substantial use, please contact the Secretary. |
How will history remember the Holy Year of 2010? Perhaps as the year which began with deep anxieties but nevertheless closed with a quiet sense of triumph? Europe’s continuing financial crisis, months of dismal weather, the world cup and the prospect of Spanish victory, and the almost surreal intervention of an Icelandic volcanic cloud and combined to suppress numbers of pilgrims on the Caminos to Santiago for the first 6 months of 2010. Yet the clouds, volcanic, economic and meteorological lifted and for the final part of the year numbers surged until 2010 ended with a record breaking number of pilgrims receiving their Compostela at the pilgrim Office in Santiago.
Perhaps 2010 will be remembered as the Holy Year in which visitors, rather than being welcomed at the entrance of the cathedral by the gaze of St James and the smile of the prophets and apostles, were confronted by a tangle of scaffolding and safety tape that shrouded the Portico de la Gloria.
Perhaps it will be remembered as the Holy Year in which a Pope prayed at the shrine of the first Apostle to be martyred, albeit during a visit of 4 hours.
Perhaps 2010 will be remembered for all, for some or none of these things. However, the CSJ has cause to look back on the 2010 both with gratitude and satisfaction. Our activities both corporately and as individuals amply reflected our primary aims of promoting the pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James.
The jewel in the crown of our Holy Year was the Worcester Weekend. It brought together so much that the CSJ represents. Honouring Saint James at the place where the Worcester pilgrim, Robert Sutton, is buried, through the exciting music of Mary Remnant and John Read; the opening talk by the Cathedral archaeologist, Chris Guy; Katherine Lack’s scholarly guidance through the city as Sutton knew it, through to the celebratory closing meal combined education, art and companionship that is a true reflection of the Camino and the Confraternity. It is true that some who attended may have gained a few inches around their waist because of the wonderful lunch that closed that weekend. However, that was balanced by members walking first with our friends from the Association Normande des Amis de Saint-Jacques along to Vanguard Way to Newhaven. Then in September 20 or so members walked the Portuguese Coastal Route and in doing so not only established friendly relationship with Associations both in Portugal and Spain but, what must be a first for the CSJ, managed to get themselves onto the front page of the Atlántico newspaper with the banner headline “Group of English pilgrims get lost in Vigo.”
Towards the end of the Year, José Chemin-de-Andrade-Filho at the Storrs lecture, with great charm, persuaded us that the liberty of the Camino and the rigour of statistics could be married in a happy union. The question he left unanswered however was at what point he anticipated that the number of researchers into the Camino would be the same as the number of pilgrims actually on the Camino.
As 2010 closes it is only natural to think of the next Holy Year of 2021. Although 11 years is a mere heart beat in the life and capacious history of the Camino for us the next Holy Year seems to be on a far horizon. Eleven years is a sufficient length of time to make it impossible to foresee how the Camino, pilgrimage or the Confraternity will develop during these years.
Then how can the CSJ even begin to discern what is the best way forward in the coming years? Well, I believe that whatever the future may hold, a good foundation would be to remind ourselves of the roots and purpose of the CSJ.
Our roots are in assisting those who wish to journey the Camino in a spirit of adventure, of emotion, of body and soul. Our purpose is to keep alive the authentic Camino welcome and hospitality through promoting the history, art and culture of pilgrimage to the shrine of the Apostle, the visible symbols of which are our refuges at Rabanal del Camino and Miraz.
I do not think that we should underestimate the difficulties in doing this. We live at a time when there are significant social, economic and cultural forces that could re-model the Camino. Our contemporary culture exults the “Now”, which all too easily threatens to forget the profoundly moving and exciting history and spirituality of the pilgrimage. We are in danger of being left with a Camino that is little more than a series of unconnected stories of personal endeavour and triumph. We live at a time when the primary measure of assessment is economic benefit– the numbers game of what contribution something or someone has made and whether this represents loss or profit. All too readily this relegates, or even makes deeply suspect, the religious and the spiritual that motivates humanity to make these acts ‘pilgrimage’.
The pressures outside and beyond the Camino could reduce it to little more than yet another tourist route, the value of which is to be found in its contribution to the economy rather than to the welfare of the human body, mind and soul. While not discounting the economic element of the Camino it is only an element in the complex make-up of the Jacobean pilgrimage. We must encourage the acceptance that there are deeper ways to appraise a pilgrimage than how much an individual spent along the way.
During the past few years it is evident that the Caminos and particularly the Camino Francés are under constant threat of encroachment by housing, industrial or new transport developments. The historic and cultural worth of the Camino as Europe’s premier cultural route is in danger of coming second to the more immediate possibilities of turning a profit from the land through which it passes. The route, its archaeology and its history, are not secure despite its UNESCO-granted World Heritage status. These are why, as a Confraternity, we should applaud and support the efforts of the Asociación Galega de Amigos do Camino de Santiago to resist such encroachments. They seek to highlight the gravity of the situation by lobbying to place the Camino on the list of World Heritage Sites under threat. I believe that this is a necessary and good warning that nobody or no organisation that has the good of the Camino at heart can allow the next 11 years to pass without vigilance.
Now we ought as a Confraternity record our thanks to those whose quiet background work has helped the CSJ to run smoothly and also cope with the numerous enquiries concerning both the routes and the practicalities of being a pilgrim. Thanks then to Marion Marples, and to those who helped regularly in the Office (Wendy Beecher, Willie Bossert, Robin Dorkings, Henriette van Zaelan); to Alison Thorp and Christine Pleasants for handling the administrative work (and don’t underestimate how much there is!); to those who help regularly on Office Open Days (Tom Barton, Angelika Schneider, Janet Richardson). The vital work of the sub-committees including both Rabanal (especially Paul Graham) and Miraz, the Corporate Governance Committee that keeps us up to the mark in how we should administer our affairs, publications etc. Here it is fitting to pay tribute to Alison Raju who despite being very involved in the production of guidebooks for Cicerone has given her expertise and wisdom to issues involving the refuges and the whole work of the CSJ.
The list of thanks is almost endless but we should include all our guide writers: William Bissett, Eric Walker, Tony Roberts, Alison Raju, John Walker, Rebekah Scott, Laurie Reyolds, Piers Nicholson, and Judy Smith.
As pilgrims we should give thanks to Tony Morwood-Leyland for the prompt and efficient issuing of our pilgrim records. And Paul Turnbull for compiling the Pilgrim Register each year. And to
Howard Nelson for the library and the website, John Curtin for the pilgrim diary project and also John Rafferty whose gifts of organisation brought together the return pilgrim service at Clapham and the programme of CSJ visits in September.
Finally, thanks to those who produce the Bulletin for us, editor Gosia Brykczynska, John Revell and James Hatts.
Colin Jones