Pilgrimage in the news: Santiago train crash in Spain, pilgrims on the move from Jammu, and more

A round up of some global pilgrimage stories here:

A pilgrim at Santiago de Compostela in Spain, near the site of the train crash. Credit: Getty Images.

– The high speed train crash in Spain on July 24 — Europe’s worst rail accident in over a decade, with 80 people killed and  — happened near Santiago de Compostela.  The cathedral at Santiago de Compostela is the end point for the Camino, or the Way of St. James, a Catholic pilgrimage with a web of routes across Europe heading to the cathedral site in Galicia, Spain.  Santiago de Compostela has been a Christian pilgrimage route since the European Middle Ages, and contemporary pilgrims (religiously motivated and otherwise) still travel this path.

Spain has declared three days of national mourning because of the crash.  Santiago officials were preparing for the feast day of St. James (the patron of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela and of Spain) at the time of the crash, but the feast has been cancelled.    

– From the state of Tamil Nadu, India: 28 pilgrims were stranded in lift-cars 200 meters above the ground — the group was making its way to the Palani hill temple.  The lift-cars stopped in mind-route due to technical problems.  The temple in the foothills is dedicated to Lord Murugan, also known as Subrahmanya, a Hindu deity who is especially popular in South India and other Tamil-influenced regions.  All pilgrims were rescued after an hour in the air.

– I’ve blogged about the Amarnath pilgrimage starting from Jammu, India: I find it so interesting that the daily departure of groups of Hindu pilgrims on this journey is reported as news.  Here’s a brief piece about 347 more pilgrims departing for Amarnath.   

– An estimated 3 million people jammed a beach in Brazil to hear the pope say Sunday mass on July 28.  The pope was wrapping up a landmark trip to Rio de Janeiro for World Youth Day — a trip marked by some protest.  Agence France Press calls the 3 million “pilgrims,” though this assertion may be a bit iffy — are Catholic locals attending the mass pilgrims?  Does a pilgrimage mean traveling physically to another place?  It’s a complicated question, but clearly the visit by the first Latin American pope had profound social impact.

Pilgrims at Basílica Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles in Cartago, Costa Rica, 22 kilometers east of San José.

– Here’s a story on a perhaps little-known pilgrimage: million of Catholic pilgrims trek each year to the Basílica Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles in Costa Rica, paying respect to the country’s patron saint, “La Negrita.”  Some walk for eight days to the basilica, with the pilgrimage or romería ending on a national holiday on Aug. 2 (an interesting conversation between national symbols and religious pilgrimage symbols).  The Vatican has declared this place the site of a miracle: believers hold that spontaneous healing has occurred here, where a small, black stone statue of the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in 1635.