“Postcards from the Camino,” is a series of occasional sketches on the theme of pilgrimage to the shrine of the Apostle Saint James (Santiago in Spanish) in Compostela. Pope Francis declared a double Holy Year 2021-2022 for pilgrims to the shrine. The writer, Gareth Thomas, is British but lives in Spain and sees European culture as reflecting centuries of shared Catholic tradition.
If you own one of those Our Lady barometer statuettes, you will know to expect rain when she turns pink. One of the best-selling souvenirs in Lourdes, in those stores piled high with mass-produced pastel-colored delights of popular piety, is...
This is the 14th installment in “Postcards from the Camino” by Gareth Thomas, a series of reflections on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage route leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James in the cathedral of Santiago de...
This is the 13th installment in “Postcards from the Camino” by Gareth Thomas, a series of reflections on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage route leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James in the cathedral of Santiago de...
This is the twelfth installment in “Postcards from the Camino” by Gareth Thomas, a series of reflections on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage route leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James in the cathedral of Santiago de...
This week’s Postcard from the Camino is a quiet and subdued stage of the pilgrimage, at a point in southwestern France that you would not want to visit. If there is one section of the Way of Saint James that...
This Postcard from the Camino is from the Taizé Community in France, which is situated on the Way of Saint James on a variant of the Vezelay route to Compostela. The village is not far from the ruins of Cluny...
President Joe Biden and the First Lady had a busy schedule on their visit to Britain last week for the G7 meeting. In reality they had little time for sightseeing, but allow me to indulge your imagination for a moment...
This is part eight in “Postcards from the Camino” by Gareth Thomas, a series of reflections on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage route leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela...
The Camino route junction where pilgrims walking to Compostela from France meet those coming from the east in Spain on the Camino Aragonés is at Obanos, after which they all mix together in the hostel dormitories of Puente la Reina. ...
Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago passing through Santo Domingo de la Calzada soon learn how devastating the Covid-19 losses have been. The town’s high death rate makes it one of the worst affected rural communities in Europe, but that...
Foncebadón is the highest village on the Camino, where pilgrims climb the mountain trail west from León. The area is known as the Maragatería and by the 1990s its ruined villages had become emblematic of the new social problem of...
This is the fourth in “Postcards from the Camino” by Gareth Thomas, a series of reflections on the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrimage route leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela...
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