– Marco Carvalho
Christ the Redeemer, Our Lady of Aparecida, the television studios of “Canção Nova” or the small town of Cabo Verde, a municipality in the heart of the state of Minas Gerais where faith became fraternity. The pioneering pilgrimage to Brazil organized in the beginning of July by Father Daniel Ribeiro left such a good impression on those who participated in the initiative that the Dehonian priest is already considering organizing a new pastoral trip to the “Land of the Holy Cross.”
The new pilgrimage should not happen, nevertheless, before 2022, the parish vicar of the Cathedral Church told O Clarim. Daniel Ribeiro drew a “very positive” balance from the spiritual expedition that he led to four Brazilian states: Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Norte and São Paulo.
A total of 44 Catholics – most of them Chinese – from Macau and Hong Kong took part in the pilgrimage: “People were very surprised with Brazil,” the young priest says. “Many had the idea that Brazil was a violent country, that risk and danger were lurking in every corner, but instead of insecurity they found kindness and goodwill,” he adds.
The success of the pilgrimage was partly due to the fact that a good number of the pilgrims who joined the initiative were never in a country with a Catholic majority, a place where faith is most visibly and intensely experienced: “Most of them were very satisfied, especially because of that experience of being in a Catholic country. Catholics are a minority in Macau. Brazil, especially the small cities – and the pilgrims have visited several – is still a country where Catholic faith is soundly experienced,” Daniel Ribeiro explains.
Under the spiritual direction of the priest of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the group of pilgrims visited some of the most important centers of Catholicism in Brazil, such as Christ the Redeemer or the basilica of Our Lady of Aparecida, but it was in a small city in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais, the state where Daniel was born, that the group had the opportunity to go through one of the most remarkable experiences they had in Brazil: “Normally, when pilgrimages are organized, pilgrims stay in hotels. One of the experiences that struck them most was the fact that they spent a night in private homes. That night that they spent in private homes became the most rewarding moment of the initiative. Each family welcomed two or three of them,” the parish vicar of the Cathedral Church said. “This experiment took place in a small town in the state of Minas Gerais called Cabo Verde. My parents were born there,” Father Ribeiro explains.
Faith and brotherhood
Of the 44 pilgrims who joined the pioneering pilgrimage, about a dozen spoke and prayed in Portuguese. The rest were Chinese-speaking Catholics, but language barriers did not prevent the appearance and consolidation of strong bonds of brotherhood.
The same happened in the second pilgrimage led this summer by Daniel Ribeiro. After taking Chinese-speaking Catholics to Brazil in the first half of July, the Dehonian priest gathered in Europe an eclectic group of 32 Brazilian and seven devotees from Macau. Over a period of fourteen days, these pilgrims visited eleven of the main pilgrimage centers of Portugal, France and Italy: “They were very different people. They didn’t know each other, but they became very close friends. They exchanged addresses, shown themselves available to exchange correspondence and there were some who expressed their will to travel to Brazil to visit their new Brazilian friends,” Daniel Ribeiro says. “It was very intense, both religiously and culturally, despite the diversity of the group. We visited eleven cities in two weeks. We were barely done and there were already people asking when the next pilgrimage would take place,” the parish vicar of the Cathedral Church added.
And when will the next pilgrimage be? The answer is far from conclusive, but Father Daniel Ribeiro aims to return periodically to Brazil with a group of local Catholics: “This kind of experience depends more on the initiative of one priest or another than on the diocese itself. All that is needed is a priest willing to be responsible for the spiritual direction of the group, who organizes it, so that he can obtain the support of the Diocese,” he says. “In my case, I think I will be able to re-organize a similar initiative, eventually three years from now. It may be wise to define a longer period to allow people to organize themselves. I will probably try to organize a great pilgrimage like this every three years. ”
Brazil is not, at first glance, the most obvious pilgrimage destination. Without the palpable aura of divinity that one can feel in Jerusalem or the centuries of tradition that the name of Saint James of Compostella evokes, Latin America’s largest Catholic country is most often associated with pagan celebrations such as the Carnival, but Father Daniel Ribeiro is committed to make a small contribution to change Brazil’s image: “Brazil is still outstandingly Catholic and there is no shortage of religious tourism options. Although religious tourism is not yet very developed, Christ the Redeemer, in Rio de Janeiro, is something that gets a lot of attention. There’s also the patron saint of Brazil, Our Lady Aparecida. The shrine of Our Lady Aparecida, near São Paulo, is huge. Although religious tourism is not very developed, this is a way of opening Brazil to this kind of visitors,” the young priest concludes.
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