What is the mission of the Department of Pastoral Care of Tourism within the Spanish Episcopal Conference?

The Pastoral of Tourism depends on the Episcopal Conference, and that this is not an organ of government of the Church in Spain, but a structure of service, promotion and coordination. It has no authority or power over the dioceses, which are independent and sovereign, governed by their respective bishops.

Therefore, all the structures and departments of the Episcopal Conference are at the service of the real Church, which are the dioceses. My task is to accompany, assist, guide and form the diocesan delegates appointed by each bishop in his respective diocese. In our work, we distinguish four major areas of action: vacation and leisure tourism, a very relevant area in Spain, which is one of the world's main destinations for this type of tourism; cultural heritage tourism, which includes both cultural and religious tourism; tourism related to leisure, nature and recreation; and social pastoral care, which focuses on the Church's action towards workers who provide services in the tourism and leisure sector.

How do you perceive the growth of religious tourism in Spain in recent years?

The first thing I perceive in a positive way is the growing appreciation and interest in the religious world as a vacation, leisure, culture, interaction and knowledge destination. This is very encouraging. In Spain, for example, of the ten most visited monuments, seven are Catholic churches, according to Turespaña. It is interesting to note that when these churches are open for worship, many people do not enter, but when they are closed or require a paid entrance, long lines form to gain access. This paradox draws our attention and, at the same time, presents us with a challenge: how can we ensure that all these people who wish to enter our churches can also open themselves to an encounter with the Church? The challenge is to prevent their visit from being reduced to a simple cultural experience, cold and anodyne, denaturalizing the true purpose of the church.

The temple was not created to be a merely cultural space, but for worship, for the encounter between God and the human being, for adoration and prayer. To reduce the meaning of the temple to a cultural visit is to distort its essence. However, I believe that this growing interest is very positive and we must accompany and promote it with care.

In Spain we face important contrasts. While one part of the country cries out for more tourists, the other wants them to leave. It is also necessary to encourage tourism in wonderful areas, such as the center of the country, which has suffered significant depopulation while the coasts have been filled with residents. The center of Spain, once the heart of the Kingdom of Castile and Aragon, has an extraordinary cultural, artistic and historical legacy, which could also be an engine of development and a meeting point and social friendship.

How can religious tourism be promoted while maintaining a balance between faith and destination marketing?

I usually give a very simple example to clarify this question, because sometimes roles get confused and we get lost. I always talk about the hospital chaplain and the hospital itself. The pastoral care of tourism and evangelization in tourism are like the hospital chaplain: the chaplain takes care of the sick, the doctors, the health personnel and the relatives. His presence brings the Gospel to that place, to that concrete reality. However, the hospital chaplain would not be able to do his work if the hospital did not exist. Without the hospital, his role would be reduced to visiting the sick in their homes on an individual basis.

Similarly, you, the structures that promote, develop and sustain tourist destinations, are like the hospital. They are the base that houses the professionals, coordinates the activities, manages the needs of the visitors and prepares the staff. This whole structure is essential for tourism to work.

I wouldn't talk so much about marketing, but rather about structuring and management. Commercial is just one more aspect, a necessary appendage within everything else. Think about what happened during the pandemic, when the economy collapsed and travel was shut down. One of the first victims was tourism, and with it, its structures. I know people who had hotels and almost ended up in the Caritas line.

For evangelization in tourism to be possible, we need those structures, that 'hospital'. But is it enough to have just the hospital? Without faith, without the soul, what remains is an empty body. If we take faith out of the religious and turn it simply into a cultural narrative, we are taking the soul out of everything we do.

What is the significance of the motto “Pilgrims of Hope” for the Jubilee 2025?

Dante Alighieri says at one point: 'If you have lost hope, go to Santiago and there you will find it'. When we organized the VIII World Congress of Pastoral Ministry of Tourism in Santiago, we chose as our central theme 'Pilgrimage in Hope', a proposal suggested by the Archbishop. It was very moving that, while we were preparing the congress, the Pope took those very words to speak about pilgrimage and hope. He reminded us that we are all pilgrims, that humanity has this innate condition. The Bible itself is a story of many pilgrimages, and the great pilgrim of history is Jesus Christ, always in search of the face of God.

The hope of which we speak is not mere optimism or a sense of economic well-being; it is a theological virtue that comes from heaven. It is a force that orients us towards God and sustains our Christian life. In a world that often seems hopeless, disillusioned or wounded by wars, discord and ideological struggles, talk of a higher hope, which impels us to move forward, is fundamental. The Pope wanted to place hope at the center of his discourse precisely at a time when it seems to be at a low ebb.

What are the main challenges facing the pastoral care of tourism today?

The pastoral care of tourism faces the challenges already pointed out by John Paul II, in terms of its integration into the ordinary and organic pastoral care of the Church. Even today, the pastoral care of tourism needs to overcome certain barriers, since it is often perceived as something external or collateral, something that is there or not, but without true integration. Even in places whose life revolves entirely around tourism, there may not be a specific diocesan delegate for this area. The Church, in many cases, is still very focused on 'internal consumption', and we find it difficult to fully understand the reality of tourism.

There is an unconscious fear of treating tourism as a broader pastoral reality. Often, when a diocesan delegate for tourism is appointed, the mistake is made of adding the label 'religious tourism'. When I see decrees like that, I immediately call to ask them to remove that last word, 'religious', because it limits and distorts the true meaning. Religious tourism is only one segment within tourism in general, although for us it is a central, important and fundamental segment. But we cannot remain only in it. As they say, we must stop 'fishing in the fishbowl', because the Lord has sent us to fish in the open sea, not only to take care of the fish that are already inside the Church.

How does the Spanish Episcopal Conference collaborate with other entities and organizations to promote or understand tourism?

Our role is to be available, to accompany and, when requested, to guide. We mainly accompany those people who, in their specific sector, have the noble task of promoting tourism, development, social friendship and encounter, whether through cultural heritage, vacation tourism or other realities. Our work is focused on being present, helping where needed and offering guidance when asked. Fundamentally, that is our approach.

How have social and technological changes influenced the way religious tourism is organized and participated in? What strategies is the Church implementing to bring tourism closer to the new generations?

I believe we are on the verge of a significant transformation in tourism, a process that is clearly in crescendo. Technologies that were innovative yesterday are now old, and this opens up new questions about how tourism might relate to artificial intelligence and how this technology might influence the construction of future realities. It is a dynamic reality that we cannot pigeonhole or rigidly define. Undoubtedly, there has been great progress, moving from the era of the notebook and the Birome to today's technological tools, which has allowed us to advance enormously.

In the world of youth, there is a growing desire to experience pilgrimage. Tourism continues to be a human passion: that impulse to travel, to get to know new realities, to leave one's own environment, to open one's mind, to understand and to dialogue. It is a path to peace and encounter between peoples. In young people, this sensitivity is especially noticeable. I know parishes where young people spend the whole summer traveling, either in camps or on trips to different places, and they come back enriched.

When you travel to an unfamiliar place, with a different culture, eat their food, see how they dress and how they interact, it inevitably calls into question your own customs. What you once considered unique or absolute is revealed as relative, and that positive comparison with other realities of the world enriches.

It is important to pay attention to this growing interest of young people in tourism and pilgrimage. Often, while there is a certain caution towards the religious message, there is no caution towards the cultural heritage. Culture, art and beauty, when explained in their religious context and meaning, can open the hearts of many to faith. Those first steps, guided by an appreciation of cultural heritage, can be the beginning of a journey towards faith.

What is your vision of tourism as a tool for interreligious dialogue?

It is fundamental, because a large part of the problems stem from ignorance. Misunderstanding stems from a lack of knowledge and is fed by prejudices, unjustified reasons and precautions, which make a person close himself to the other without really knowing him. However, when you travel to a place, get to know its culture and allow the other person to get to know you, many barriers are broken. Sharing a meal or temporarily living in the other's reality and world makes it very difficult to generate conflict. Wars are usually the result of preconceptions, preconceptions and, above all, fear and ignorance, and that dissipates with contact and understanding.

A few final words for tourism managers, tourism companies, tourists and pilgrims

The world of tourism is a fascinating world, although not always well understood. It is a field full of positive realities, but also with many challenges yet to be conquered. One of the key aspects is respect, not only for the place, the art and the beauty we encounter, but also for the people who live there. The inhabitants of these places, who have had the privilege of growing up in unique environments, are the true custodians of what we, as tourists, enjoy only for a short time.

Taking care of the neighbor, the local inhabitant, is fundamental. It is important to accompany them, respect them and value their role as guardians of the realities we visit. I give as an example a child who is born and grows up in Florence: his life experience is very different from that of a child who grows up in a country at war, amid suffering and pain. This respect for those who live in these places must always be present when we do tourism.

Tourism is not without its challenges. It is not always easy, and we often face complex situations. Often, the efforts to maintain and restore monuments, to preserve them and make them available to the public, are titanic and do not always have sufficient support from the authorities. But heritage conservation is not the ultimate goal. These monuments were built for worship, for the encounter with God, and they must once again fulfill that mission. It is not just a matter of preserving the stone; it is a matter of these spaces once again evangelizing, allowing God to enter the heart of man and man to come closer to the heart of God.

From the Tourism and Society Think Tank, we would like to sincerely thank Father Gustavo Riveiro D'Angelo for the opportunity to grant this interview and to share his reflections on tourism and its pastoral dimension, and our gratitude to the Department of Pastoral Tourism of the Spanish Episcopal Conference for its willingness to collaborate with those who promote and manage tourism, especially when it comes to fostering respect for cultural heritage, faith and local communities. We hope that this dialogue will inspire to continue building a more humane, respectful and open to the encounter with the transcendental. Thank you very much.