Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People

People on the Move

N° 107 (Suppl.), August 2008

FINAL DOCUMENT 

I.  The Event

From September 10-13, 2007, the Fifth European Congress of the Pastoral Care of Pilgrimages and Shrines took place in Lourdes (France), an appointment that periodically brings together the Directors of Pilgrimages and the Rectors of the Shrines of Europe.  The following 19 countries were represented: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, The Czech Republic, Croatia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and Ukraine. The Congress was promoted by the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People in collaboration with the Shrines of Our Lady of Lourdes, and had as its theme: Pilgrimages and Shrines: Paths of Peace, Spaces of Mercy.  The idea was taken from Mary Immaculate’s invitation to pray for sinners in her apparitions in Lourdes, at which it is also in line with the Holy Father’s Message for the 2007 World Day of Peace centred on: The Human Person, the Heart of Peace. Benedict XVI pointed out in the Message the growing need for peace in contemporary society where human rights are subject to continuous attacks (Cf. No. 12).  Many forms of violence later generate vengeance. So peace can only spring from reconciliation, while forgiveness can come from the exercise of mercy which is asked for from God and offered to one’s brothers and sisters: “Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ” (Eph 4:32).

The Congress was aimed at encouraging the Directors of Pilgrimages and the Rectors of Shrines to look together for means to promote and increase these dynamics of mercy that grow from faith but are also supported by reason.

The work of the Congress had been formulated and planned to give space and weight to the themes of justice, solidarity, truth and freedom, which are the four pillars that support the building of peace.  Moreover, there was the intention to offer renewed operational motivations to support believers in their desire to encounter the face of God and enhance the value of the profound relation between the faithful and the sacred, which is rediscovered in recollection and silence.

The opening ceremony of the Congress began with the reading of the message signed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone in which the Holy Father sent his blessing and good wishes to the participants. The Pope expressed the hope that the meeting would favour an ever more lively contemplation of Christ, the Word of the Father, in order to encourage a growing and generous evangelical witness.

In his words of welcome to the participants, the Mayor of Lourdes, Mr. Jean-Pierre Artiganave, invited them to look at the growing development of pilgrimages in view of a greater organization.

H.Em. Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, the President of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, introduced the work of the Congress. In his address to the participants, His Eminence took two fundamental characteristics of the European Continent into consideration: the common Christian roots and the growing mobility of people and ideas. He said that the Church is called to interpret them and promote brotherhood and solidarity.

Next, the Cardinal took advantage of the event to be celebrated in Lourdes starting next December 8^th - the 150^th anniversary of the Virgin Mary’s apparitions to Bernadette - to stress the importance of asking for a child-like heart as a gift from the Father, which is suited to accepting the Good News and thus to conversion, the first grace of every pilgrimage. The pastoral theme of the Lourdes Shrines for this year also makes this exhortation: “Let yourselves be reconciled with God”. On the spiritual path of the pilgrimage, everyone is called to experience the love and especially the forgiveness of Christ.  Therefore, it is necessary to help the pilgrims to find proper recollection so that in silence and in the communion among themselves, they will discover the God who speaks to their hearts about peace, in the example of Saint Francis of Assisi, who let himself be guided to the experience of loving God and became a man of peace, tolerance and dialogue.

Cardinal Martino went on to say that in a world which relegates sickness and weakness to the margins of society, the Directors of Pilgrimages and the Rectors of Shrines testify that God’s heart is first and foremost mercy. But its exercise must go beyond the confines of these workshops of spirituality, the shrines and pilgrimages, so that the dignity of every human person will be at the centre of our concerns, like all the problems of the society of our times.

Afterwards, the Bishop of Lourdes, Most Rev. Jacques Perrier, greeted the participants and centered his address on the 150^th anniversary of Our Lady’s apparitions for which the Shrine is preparing. In fact, in 2008 Lourdes will celebrate this jubilee event.  According to the Bible, a jubilee is a “year of grace”, joy, liberation and a new start. The Church has resumed this biblical tradition, and the Pontiffs have periodically proclaimed holy years, and also extraordinary jubilees. In Lourdes, the apparitions took place in 1858, which was precisely an extraordinary jubilee year. In the apparitions we find the elements hoped for by the Pope and the Bishop at the time of this event: catechesis, prayer and penance. Even though the young Bernadette did not enjoy good health or material well-being, a great joy emanated from her.  Since then, the grace of the jubilee is fulfilled in a certain sense every day in Lourdes, “to bring glad tidings to the poor… to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind” (Lk 4:18-19). Lourdes is an “on going jubilee”.

The theme, Pilgrimages and Shrines: Paths of Peace, Spaces of Mercy, was initially studied in depth by the theologian, Prof. José da Silva Lima from the Braga branch of the Portuguese Catholic University.  He explained that grace is granted to those who enter the shrine and let themselves be surprised by God, like Zachariah when he entered the “shrine” and heard the voice of the promise.  The speaker went on to say that in the Gospel, the shrine is not only in Jerusalem, but also in Nazareth because Mary is full of grace and the Word became flesh in Her. So ever since Mary set out, definitive love, Mercy, no longer dwells only in Nazareth, in only one place, but among the whole of humanity. Next, he stressed that mercy has no homeland but is present everywhere. It has no home but it is found in all the homes that hear the Voice and let “salvation enter in”. Mercy is for ever and it is addressed to all the categories of society. It excludes no one but is especially in favour of the poorest and the afflicted. Prof. da Silva concluded by stating that mercy is experienced only by those who love, listen and cry very much. For example, for the agony of an innocent, those who dry the blood that is shed and rush to the tomb and smell the new perfume of the Resurrection.

Subsequently, Prof. Jean-Yves Baziou from the Catholic University of Lille (France) intervened on the Pilgrimages and Shrines: Paths of Peace, Spaces of Mercy. For the Bible, peace is a human quality and goal, the condition that makes it possible to live unity of humanity with respect for particular differences. So the pilgrimage to Jerusalem had as its goal the unity of the people of Israel and then that of the nations, thereby becoming a path of mutual recognition. Jesus appeared as the bearer of peace and responded to violence with meekness.  With him, the shrine where God resides is the people of God: that is, humanity reconciled in peace. Today, like yesterday, every pilgrim leaves his place of birth to find inner peace and to have an experience of fraternity. At the shrine, he finds new and broad human relationships in addition to Christian relationships, with whom he can share a common experience of humanity. The shrine also prefigures and anticipates the peace hoped-for in the afterlife because it is a space of joy in an often hostile world and favours the awareness of the Church’s unity and universality. Pilgrimages and Shrines contribute in any case to three situations of peace: peace with oneself, with others and with God.

Subsequently, space was given to the participants to ask the speakers some questions and to meet in study groups, which took place in three sessions. Rev. Father Raymond Zambelli, the Rector of the Shrines of Lourdes, introduced these sessions.

A first round table had Rev. Francis Goossens, S.M., the Chaplain of Pilgrimages in Belgium, as moderator. It aimed at giving suggestions about how to prepare the faithful on pilgrimages for the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation. The four following speakers, respectively from France, Portugal, French-speaking Switzerland and the Ukraine, made interventions.

Rev. Michel Bravais, the President of the National Association of the Diocesan Directors of Pilgrimages of France, explained that the pilgrimage is an initiation to Christian life as a path of conversion and preparation for the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation. He then developed some aspects of this initiation that involves leaving, which is necessary to find what is essential, acceptance of others, the encounter with different cultures or also religions, and even love for one’s enemies.  What enables the faithful to let themselves be truly converted to God is listening to the Sacred Scriptures, as the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council reminds us.  The rituals of the pilgrimage allow the faithful to discover Christ.

Rev. Virgilio do Nascimento Antunes, the Director of the Pilgrimage Service of the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine (Portugal), recalled that the Shrine opens a pilgrim to reconciliation when Our Lady’s call to conversion is repeated to him in the context of listening to the Gospel and the celebration of the Liturgy. As a place where many spiritual retreats, catechetical and theological formation, individual, family and group pilgrimages take place, the Shrine gives all the activities carried out there a dimension of reconciliation. The culminating point of the pastoral care of reconciliation is the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance, an expression of the Church’s power of reconciliation. As a privileged place for liturgical and personal prayer, the Shrine facilitates communion with God, the source of every moment of conversion and reconciliation.  Atonement for one’s sins and those of our brethren is a central aspect of the message of Fatima. The forms of penance that the faithful impose on themselves, the long walks, and the little daily sacrifices for the “poor sinners” confer a penitential aspect on the entire pilgrimage. The Shrine is a place where the Catholic faith is professed, which implies recognition of the human being as a child of God the Creator, and man’s recognition of God’s holiness.

Rev. Can. Michel-Ambroise Rey of the St. Maurice Abbey and Delegate of the Pastoral Care of Tourism and Free Time in French-speaking Switzerland reported that in the Abbey there is always the possibility to call a priest to the confessional, just as in many convents of the Capuchin Fathers. Moreover, a certain number of priests are available for penitential celebrations with individual absolution. The continuous pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Scex, located twenty minutes on foot from the monastery, is a special occasion to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In the French-speaking dioceses, alpine pilgrimages to the Great St. Bernard, mountain retreats, and weeks for walking and spirituality are organized and promoted by the Canons of Great St. Bernard, the Jesuit Fathers, the “Eucharistein” community, the “Béatitudes” and “Verbe de Vie”.  These are other occasions when the disciples of Christ can receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the evocative mountain setting. The Shrines of Our Lady of Marches, Bourguillon and Vorbourg welcome more and more pilgrims and, in the spirit of the pilgrimage, reconcile men and women with one another and with the Lord.

Rev. Roman Dutchak, the Delegate of the Eparchy of Ternopil-Zboriv (Ukraine), provided some historical information about the Shrine of Zarvanyzia starting from the twelfth century down to its great development recorded in the years between 1990-1996. Next, he explained how the faithful are prepared for the pilgrimage and also for the Sacrament of Penance, and how the Church in Ukraine has come out of the “catacombs” and rebuilt the destroyed shrine. In 2004, a great Ukrainian-Polish pilgrimage of love and forgiveness took place at that shrine, in which 200,000 pilgrims from the two neighboring peoples took part. A pilgrimage is planned for July next year for families from the entire Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

The second round table, moderated by Rev. Sebastian Taltavull, the Director of the Secretariat of the Episcopal Commission for Pastoral Care of Spain, discussed which pastoral care of hospitality was most indicated in the Shrines in order to encourage the pilgrimages to receive the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation. The following three experts, respectively from Austria, France and Spain, made interventions:

Rev. Robert Bősner, OSB, the spokesman of the Austrian Work Group for the Pastoral Care of Pilgrimages, indicated in his three-part contribution how Mary, the Immaculate Virgin and Mother of God, is important in the context of this second round table. This is accomplished by the message of Fatima, which should be seen as an encouragement of a penitential attitude in the Church, and an invitation to make a greater effort to sin no more and to repent.  Moreover, the following invocation for the remission of sins formulated by Mary herself - “O Jesus, forgive our sins, save us from the fire of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of your mercy”, which is added at the end of each decade of the Rosary - helps to consolidate the attitude of faith in a spirit of repentance and conversion. Afterwards, Father Bősner reported on the suggestions sent to him by the pastoral workers of the Austrian pilgrimages in view of this Congress.

Msgr. Patrick Jacquin, the Rector-Archpriest of Notre-Dame of Paris and President of the Association of the Shrine Rectors of France (ARS), highlighted in his intervention the importance of the 140 shrines of France for pilgrims. The atmosphere breathed in these places, the traces of the lives of the saints, the relics, and the presence of Mary and her maternal attitude encourage visitors to become pilgrims and move pilgrims to advance along the way of holiness, conversion or healing. People who normally stay away from the Sacraments, approach the Eucharist and Reconciliation in the shrines.  Young people discover celebrations, rituals or living traditions in the shrines that invite them to approach the faith. In recent years, the number of visitors has increased by a million and reached 43 million for the whole of France. The Shrines are one of the two lungs of ecclesial life; the other is represented by the parishes. The visitors and pilgrims involved in human mobility need these stable places that are always open and hospitable. The Shrines are like a good-hearted person, full of grace, love and mercy in Jesus Christ through Mary.

Rev. Josep-Enric Parellada, OSB, the Director of the Department of Tourism, Shrines and Pilgrimages of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, reported that today, as always, the Shrines are places or moments in which the encounter with God is possible. This brings pilgrims or visitors to look at their past lives, the present, and especially the future, in God’s perspective. This is the meaning of conversion: to no longer look with one’s own eyes, but with God’s eyes. It should be stated clearly that in the Shrine it is not only man who seeks God, but God who comes in person to speak to man and show him the way to find him.  God himself indicates the way of conversion to man, which comes through the encounter of sacramental celebration. Those in charge of hospitality in the shrines should take care to find the forms and attitudes that will help those who go to the Shrine to feel called to conversion. This means understanding, explaining, dialoguing and praying. Father Parellada then emphasized the importance of the faith experience that the pilgrims and visitors have when they go to the Shrine and in this regard he referred to their behaviour or attitude when they approach the confessional. The goal once again is man who goes to encounter God and discovers that it was He who was waiting for him, He the pilgrim who, day after day, was walking along the same path of his life.

The program also included three lectures by experts who took up the theme from the viewpoint of justice, freedom and truth, solidarity and love.  Rev. Caesar Atuire, the Managing Director of the “Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi” (Italy) acted as moderator.

Msgr. Richard Mohan, the Prior of St. Patrick’s Purgatory (Ireland), recalled that the Roman Pontiffs, in particular John Paul II and Benedict XVI, have constantly stressed that the two fundamental values that define justice are the person and the community.  So the duty of the pilgrimages and shrines must be to promote respect for persons and build relations of justice and solidarity. The theme of the desert is at the basis of both the pilgrimage and the retreat. At Lough Derg, near the Shrine of St. Patrick, the pilgrims are isolated and at the mercy of the elements of the atmosphere. They experience poverty, equality, hunger, toil and powerlessness in the face of forces they cannot control. All of this leads them to ask themselves about tolerance, freedom and respect for others. In the Sacrament of Reconciliation and in the Eucharist, they celebrate their fraternity in Christ and are questioned by the Good News. This pilgrimage to the shrine, which can only host several hundred pilgrims, is an intense, personal, stimulating experience and a commitment to follow Christ.  The pilgrims come out from it healed and reinvigorated.

Msgr. Carlo Mazza, the Director of the National Office for the Pastoral Care of Free Time, Tourism and Pilgrimages (Italy), said that the relation between pilgrimage and shrine proves to be profound.  Over time, it has become intrinsic and structural and outlined the particular characteristic of a path of faith and its “history” in the wake of the greater “History of salvation”. From this perspective, the aim of his contribution was to verify how authentic “paths of peace” can be started between pilgrimages and shrines, which are and can be experienced, depending on the person and the relations between peoples, ethnic groups, cultures and religions.

In the defined framework of reference, the God of Biblical-Christian revelation appears as the one who communicates himself in the time of historical man’s pilgrimage and reveals to him the authentic face of truth and freedom.  From this comes the importance of the experience of “walking” in God’s truth in order to understand more radically “the truth about man” remembering Jesus’ words, “Whoever lives the truth comes to the light” (Jn 3:21). Moreover, the God of Biblical-Christian revelation manifests himself as absolute and unconditioned freedom, different from man tormented by apparently insurmountable restlessness. So if God is free in his most profound identity, man is free in his power to desire freedom, which is only satisfied by accepting the Other as necessary. In the pilgrimage, human freedom has space for a decision. Enlightened by faith, man makes the passage from pure desire to reality and frees himself from sin through faith and the Sacraments of faith. For this, it is necessary to create in the shrine the conditions for a fitting hospitality and places available for a spiritual colloquium, which are signs of respectful freedom and of profound listening to the pilgrim’s needs.

It is urgent, therefore, to build man “in Christ’s measure” who was sent by the Father to make the everlasting covenant and establish “messianic peace”. It seems obvious that in order to build real peace, it is necessary to follow the “Prince of peace” and overcome the many prejudices that invalidate the mind and heart, through authentic “conversion”.  In this “juncture” of grace, “peace” comes about as a truly paschal event, in accordance with the Risen Christ’s greeting, “Peace to you!” (Jn 20:19). This peace is engraved on the conscience and, so to speak, ratified in the shrine, where specific and new coordinates of personal life and new relations with others are built in order to be “truly free in Christ” (Cf. Gal 5:1 ss).

Prof. Antoni Jackowski and Dr. Izabela Sołjan from the Institute of Geography and Territorial Management of the Jaghellonica University of Krakow (Poland), Chair of Geography of Religions, gave a report on: Pilgrimages as the manifestation of solidarity among human beings. The pilgrimages that originate from religion and beliefs accompany man throughout all the stages of development of cultures and civilizations.  They almost have a super-denominational and super-temporal nature.  The pilgrimage is a kind of peregrination undertaken for religious purposes, which concludes with the visit to sacred places.

In Christianity, pilgrimage constitutes one of the public and community expressions of piety. Its genesis has to be sought in the Bible.  So it is a religious phenomenon, but it is also social and cultural and has given rise to a particular “culture”. The pilgrimages on foot have always created a community sense among the pilgrims and woven an invisible thread of peace among them, thereby giving life to a particular sense of community and solidarity, which is both religious and social and national, and becoming a great space of inter-human solidarity.

The question was illustrated based on the example of Poland. On the world scale, this country occupies an important place and plays a forefront role in the pilgrimages.  It can be listed among the very few nations where, from the beginning, a great pilgrimage activity has always persisted. Lastly, in the difficult moments of its history, the pilgrimages represented an essential factor in awakening and forming the Polish national conscience.

On the last day of the Congress there was a very lively closing session, in which the speaker, Most Rev. Gérard Defois, Archbishop-Bishop of Lille (France), dialogued with the participants and answered their questions. The Archbishop stressed that shrines and places of pilgrimage are for our society symbolic places of reconciliation and peace, where all persons are welcome and a privileged place is reserved for the poor and the sick. All this happens while society around values only force and even the violence of the mighty. There were also many questions about the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Archbishop Defois stressed the difficulty of people today to “overcome evil with good”, to use St Paul’s expression, because if reference to the Christian faith is lacking the only answers to evil are repression, exclusion or depression, which at times leads to suicide. The Archbishop quoted Pope Benedict XVI, who in his latest book “Jesus of Nazareth” wrote: Only the person who is reconciled with God and with himself can create peace in his environment. The Liturgy of reconciliation opens perspectives that are really Christian, that is perspectives of salvation by the Cross of Christ and not just by our own moral efforts. That is why it is important for society itself, that in shrines, those places of mercy, the Liturgy of reconciliation should be offered to all. And this is possible, thanks to an ordained ministry that gives objective meaning to the forgiveness received from God through the ministry of the Church.

At the end of the interventions reported above, the Congress participants approved a text of Conclusions and Recommendations which is published below. 

II.  Conclusions

1. When man becomes a pilgrim to look for and find God, he should also remember that “God… comes in Person to speak to man of himself”.[1]  God comes to us on our paths of humanity. The shrine is then a privileged place where God visits man.  In order to answer man’s deep desire to peace, and to outline its path, God makes a pilgrimage into the world. Our fundamental conviction is: “[Lord] Thou didst forgive the iniquity of thy people; thou didst pardon all their sin. Selah. Thou didst withdraw all thy wrath; thou didst turn from thy hot anger” (Ps 85, 2-3). What he desires is love and mercy, not sacrifice (Cf. Hos 6:6; Mt 9:13 and 12:7).

2. When God visits the earth in the pilgrimages and shrines, mercy sets out on its way. A visitor to a shrine, a pilgrim or a tourist asks to be encountered and accepted just as he is because “first of all peace must be built in hearts.”[2]

3. The shrines, each with its own history, are the temporary end of a voyage in which every pilgrim should be able to find his well of Jacob (Jn 4:19-20). Mercy needs ‘human innards’ in order to welcome the many people who come walking, filled with questions, weary and in search of reference points and recognition. The shrine goes with mercy (Cf. Hos 11:8). It cannot bring love without the affectionate face that identifies it. All men should remember that they are under the mystery of God’s grace (Cf. Rm 8:34). As long as there is life, no one is condemned.

4. Pilgrimages and shrines, under God’s light, favour peace with oneself. This implies an effort to change personally and the possibility to integrate the negative aspects of our existences in order to achieve tranquillity of soul, to the point that we can admit serenely that we are just men and women and that in our lives the darkness is always next to the light.

5. In Europe, the awareness of good and evil is decreasing, but in compensation the “guilt complex”[3] continues to grow, which undermines consciences at a time when reference points or values are left to the drift of opinion trends. On a pilgrimage and in a shrine, man can discover that Mercy stops over him whenever he invites it to remain. The effect can be unexpected and, in the end, it can change those who already have had this inexpressible desire in their heart.

6. The quality of hospitality plays an important role and is expressed by the beauty of the places (the lay out, symbols, languages…), through the attention given to accompanying persons and groups, the explanation of the needs of life in the shrines, and the experience of in-depth silence which favors communion with God and others.  In fact, when we welcome visitors, they too may be in the process of welcoming the Church and, through her mediation, the Word of God. So it is desirable to exercise the virtue of hospitality towards them while respecting them in their rhythms and their times of maturation.

7. The shrines and pilgrimages, with the network they make up, also have a social role: they favor peaceful relations between people, reciprocal knowledge about their history, and their mutual communication in depth and in interiority. In the past, pilgrimages and shrines contributed to building a peaceful state of mind by laying down juridical guarantees that protected the pilgrims.

Today our different shrines, particularly with regard to this continent, can still be “a meeting-place for the different peoples of Europe”.[4] The awareness is growing that “Europe cannot and must not deny her Christian roots. These represent a dynamic component of our civilization as we move forward into the third millennium”.[5]  They can contribute in their own way to the path of unity undertaken by Europe, a unity which remains “in great part still to be achieved in the minds and hearts of individuals”.[6]

8. Pilgrimages and Shrines are places of renewal in fidelity and faith understanding.

9. The works of mercy (Cf. Mt 25) and the Sacrament of Reconciliation are ways to be delivered from the weight of sin, to have access to the freedom of God’s children, and to arrive at Salvation, which has its source and completion in the Eucharist celebrated and shared. 

III.  Recommendations

1. To make the Sacrament of Reconciliation accessible through the visible presence of the ministers of Reconciliation who can accompany the process in order to live and celebrate the experience of Mercy. To respect the confidentiality, serenity and dignity of this process in the place where it is celebrated. To propose privileged occasions to sensitise and prepare for the celebration of forgiveness.

2. To invite all the baptised - laypersons, men/women religious and ordained ministers - to this permanent spiritual renewal throughout their lives. 

3. To work for the revitalisation of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, with the specific means and styles of the shrines and parishes today.

4. To support a renewal of anthropological, theological, liturgical, catechetical reflection on Reconciliation, given the European’s new state of awareness.

5. To create the conditions so that silence will make it possible to welcome Peace, a gift of God, and favour a climate of prayer.

6. To encourage collaboration between the religious “organisms” and the tourist agencies in order to aid the visitors’ understanding of the mission of the pilgrimages and shrines.

7. To pursue a path of harmony between the pilgrimages and Shrines and all the components of diocesan life.

8. To encourage the spiritual and material solidarity of the pilgrimages and Shrines with the Catholic minority communities both in Europe and in their own countries.

9. To rejoice for the consideration given by the Bishops’ Conferences to the importance of the pilgrimages and Shrines in a world in constant movement, and to request the creation of collaboration bodies between Directors of Pilgrimages and Rectors of Shrines for a better pastoral service. 

*     *     * 

We entrust the follow-up of our work and its implementation to the maternal love of the Virgin Mary, the Immaculate Conception, the Mother of the Church, and to all the Patron Saints of our shrines and places of pilgrimage in Europe.