SOME 16 feet beneath the present-day street level of Damascus, the
Syrian capital, just off the Street Called Straight, is a cramped,
artificially lighted chapel with roughly cut stones for walls and a few
modern pews as furnishings. The grotto was once part of a home where —
2,000 years ago — Saul of Tarsus is said to have taken shelter after he
was blinded by a heavenly light, the incident that converted him to
Christianity. He emerged from that home as the Apostle Paul.
On a recent sultry summer evening, that historical event was very
much on the minds of the 20 or so worshipers who watched reverently as
a priest stood in front of a modern altar at one end of the small room,
arranged the liturgical items he had brought with him, lighted the
candles and celebrated Mass. “In the tradition of legions of pilgrims,
we find ourselves doing what the early Christians did,” the Rev. Cesare
Atuire said during his homily, which addressed the significance of
Paul’s message in contemporary society.
Since June, similar gatherings have been taking place in churches throughout the world after Pope Benedict XVI
inaugurated the jubilee year commemorating the second millennium of
Paul’s birth, which historians have placed between A.D. 7 and A. D. 10.
To
many present-day pilgrims, however, nothing quite compares with the
experience of traveling the road to Damascus. “It’s one thing for
Christians to read the Holy Scriptures, quite another to come see where
things happened,” said Father Atuire, who is the chief executive
officer of the Opera Romana Pellegrinaggi, or ORP, the Vatican-backed
travel organization that last year took 300,000 pilgrims to religious
shrines around the globe, including its home city, Rome. (This year, it
expects that number to hit 400,000.)
Of course, Christians aren’t
the only ones showing an interest in religion-based tourism.
Participants in the Kumbh Mela, a rotating Hindu festival, have
reportedly topped 75 million, and each year, some two million Muslims
make a pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. Nor is Damascus the only
place where Christians are heading these days. Lourdes, France,
which the Pope will visit in September, draws an average of six million
a year (with more than eight million expected this year, officials say,
to mark the 150th anniversary of the reported apparition of the Virgin
Mary at the grotto), and San Giovanni Rotondo, home to the shrine of
the mystic monk Padre Pio, lured eight million to Puglia, Italy, in the last year.
Father
Atuire has some thoughts about the surge of believers searching for the
roots of their faith. “In times of epochal change, people sense a
greater need to find points of reference,” he said while a bus lurched
along a Syrian highway to the town of Malula and the Convent of Sts.
Sergius and Bacchus, another popular pilgrimage site and one of the few
places in the world where Aramaic, the language spoken by Jesus, is
still heard. “But at the same time many are looking for untraditional
forms of expression and a pilgrimage allows you to approach a religious
experience from a different perspective.”
Pilgrimage destinations, even unconventional ones, are recognizing the potential for growth. Syria,
not exactly a top-of-mind vacation destination for Western tourists
(the American administration “hasn’t always represented us in a good
way,” Syria’s tourism minister, Sadallah Agha al-Qala, said in a recent
interview), has been making the most of the Pauline year celebrations.
“We’re trying to give importance to the jubilee,” said Mr. Agha
al-Qala. Both Muslim and Christian Syrians “are proud of the role
Damascus played in the history of Christianity.”
A series of
events — concerts, conferences — coordinated by the country’s multiple
Christian communities and the government of this most secular of Arab
states kicked off the Pauline year, which runs until June 29, 2009. “It
was a unique experience,” watching Christian and Muslim leaders
celebrate together, “speaking the same language and sharing the same
emotions,” Mr. Agha al-Qala said. Another weeklong round of events,
coordinated with ORP, is scheduled to end on Jan. 25, the date given
for Paul’s conversion.
Syria will also have a starring role at
Josp Fest, a showcase for tour operators, agencies and organizations
specializing in pilgrimages, or “journeys of the spirit,” which ORP is
organizing in Rome in January. Religion-based tourism will finally get
“out of the ghetto experience it has in the tourism world,” to receive
“the dignity and exposure it merits,” Father Atuire said. So far, some
60 countries have agreed to participate, and the priest said he was
hoping more will sign on.
Father Atuire has played no small part
in broadening the scope of ORP, which was founded in 1934 to provide
spiritual and logistical support to pilgrimages sponsored by Roman
parishes. Until a few years ago, the Vatican organization mostly did
business with parishes and groups; now individuals make up 40 percent
of its trade. “I’ve been trying to transform ORP into a real Catholic
universal organization in terms of geographical and spiritual
outreach,” Father Atuire said, “because in times of crisis, this can be
of value not only to people who go to church, but for everyone.” Prayer
is central to the pilgrimage experience, and spiritual guides accompany
each group to celebrate Mass and stimulate discussion. In Syria, where
225 pilgrims have visited on organization tours so far this year,
groups might ponder the Crusades while climbing the battlements at the
fortified castle known as Crac des Chevaliers, or the tradition of
Byzantine icon painting prompted by a visit to the monastery at
Seidnaya, which houses a miraculous image of the Virgin reputedly
painted by St. Luke.
Then, inside the Umayyad Mosque, the
eighth-century structure that houses what is believed to be the head of
St. John the Baptist, conversation may turn to Christian-Muslim
relations and the shared reverence for this historical figure. ORP has
steadily increased its pilgrimage destinations and proposals. “There’s
no corner of the globe we don’t touch,” said Father Atuire. This
includes Burma, where pilgrims can visit missionary communities.
To increase access to its pilgrimage packages to shrines like Fatima in Portugal, or the Holy Land, ORP (www.josp.com) has recently brokered deals with travel service companies like Sabre Holdings, which owns travel-theme companies including Travelocity.com.
(The eight-day Syria trip, with a departure from Rome, costs 1,150
euros, $1,687, at $1.50 to the euro, plus a 30 euro enrollment fee and
another 100 euros for taxes and fuel surcharges.)
And last year
it began its own chartered pilgrimage flight service to help contain
prices and overcome the spiritual limitations of “modern-day travel,
which tends to torpedo people from one place to another,” Father Atuire
said. The plane’s biblically themed interior décor and specially
trained flight assistants are meant to be conducive to meditation. “The
journey is part of the process,” he said. “It’s important to recover
the quality of time.”
Of course, Rome remains its most popular
destination, and the organization is not shy about promoting its
insider status. (“Afraid of queues?” asks a blurb on the ORP Web site
that shows a long line of frazzled tourists snaking along the wall
leading to the entrance of the Vatican museums, a common sight in
Rome.) For 25 euros, which includes an audio guide — only 5 euros more
than the normal admission charge with an audio guide — the organization
promises an experience free of standing in line.
“It’s the least we can do,” Father Atuire said, laughing. “We are, after all, the church of Rome.”