Joint IMEMS/CCS Lecture: "Problematizing Pilgrimage: A Theological Reconsideration of Contemporary Spiritual Tourism"

Video is available on the IMEMS Facebook page.

There is a live Q and A session to follow, 13 October 2020: Booking Essential: https://centreforcatholicstudies.eventbrite.com

Abstract

Historic and contemporary pilgrimage practices have many similarities, but also some nuanced differences. From the famous Camino de Santiago to the newly developed Camino Nova Scotia, pilgrimage routes and pilgrims themselves are as varied as the stars in the sky. In this paper, I briefly review the motives and purported benefits of pilgrimage, then reconsider it in theological terms with respect to the human-divine relationship and understandings of purgation, salvation, and sacrifice. I conclude by reflecting on the ways that voluntary dislocation (as practiced by privileged global-north pilgrims) both prevents insight about and fosters the possibility of critiquing some aspects of colonialism that have caused massive involuntary dislocation of indigenous populations, both historic and contemporary. The recent example of a European pilgrimage/study tour organized by a Canadian theological school will illustrate the problematic features of contemporary pilgrimage as they intersect with the global crises of migration.

About The Rev. Dr. Rob Fennell

Academic Dean

Associate Professor,

Historical and Systematic Theology

Atlantic School of Theology

http://www.astheology.ns.ca/faculty/full-time/rob-fennell.html