New approaches

“In secularised and ever more intercultural and multi-religious European society, tourism may become a useful means for the diffusion of Gospel values”, says the Final Document of the meeting of National Directors for the Pastoral Care of Tourism in Europe, held in Rome in recent days. We present a résumé of the conclusions and the recommendations contained in the document. THE CONCLUSIONS. “All the participants at the Meeting are conscious that the proclamation of Jesus Christ, the Lord, is at the centre of any form of pastoral care, also that of tourism, and that all its action should have the human person as its object and subject. In continuation with the recommendations of the World Congress of Bangkok in 2004, this action must be creative and performed with pastoral flair”, says the first point of the document’s conclusions. “Tourism itself, a complex phenomenon and sign of the times, – continues the document – has a need for a new, if not for a first evangelization”, also due to “the new forms in which it is presented today: educational, congressional, therapeutic, social, missionary, sporting, or that of major events”. A “reductive perception of tourism”, however, still persists: it is associated only with business and profit, which makes difficult a proper acceptance and necessary development of pastoral activity in the sector”. So, “the creation of a national structure of coordination of everything that many dioceses are already doing” seems useful. “In secularised and ever more intercultural and multi-religious European society – the document continues – tourism may become a useful means for the diffusion of Gospel values”: even “a well-guided tourist visit to works of art and to historic monuments may in fact be a natural catechesis”. There is therefore a need for “a formative project, ecumenical in perspective and attentive to the inter-religious dimension, capable of interacting with the various subjects involved in the world of tourism”. Such a project, “inter-dimensional in action”, “may become a front-line laboratory for evangelization, but also a testimony of openness, hospitality, communion and dialogue”. In this sense “Christian operators and entrepreneurs of tourism have a great task to perform”. “Pilgrimages deserve particular mention and attention, especially those to goals that have helped to shape the face of Europe: the pilgrimage route to Santiago, the Via Francigena to Rome, the network of sanctuaries, and the itineraries of art and of faith, in a continent so rich in the testimonies of its Christian roots”. THE RECOMMENDATIONS. The promotion of “agreements with civil authorities at various levels in the name of the centrality of man, bearing in mind that tourism influences, in a transverse fashion, culture, the economy, the environment, lifestyles and quality of life”, is one of the document’s recommendations. Others are the promotion, together with other Church agencies, of “original forms of tourism with a new face: free tourism, low-cost travel in mission territories, holidays devoted to humanitarian service in poor countries, ecological tourism, journeys of silence, hospitality in monasteries or in prayer centres”. The delegates then call for “formative courses of interdisciplinary type for church personnel within the pastoral plans of local Churches and in seminary curricula”. Apart from better training of professionals in the sector, the document recommends that future priests should study languages more, “perhaps with periods of practical exercise spent abroad, with a view to increasing their multi-functionality in an increasingly intercultural sphere”. The initiatives proposed in the document also include the creation of an “interdisciplinary watchdog for quality tourism composed of theologians, sociologists, jurists, economists, pastoral workers, experts and technicians, in communion with the pastors of the Church”. “In the pastoral care of tourism, both in welcoming visitors and in preparing the faithful for travel – says the document – we should also point out the injustices perpetrated on those who are exploited and whose human rights are violated, as in the case of unprotected workers, women and especially children”. Finally, the document calls for the creation “of a website at the European level, with a pastoral objective, which everyone could draw on and also contribute to”.