Tourism pastoral is not multiplying masses, it is evangelizing, says expert

Fr. Gustavo Riveiro, Episcopal Delegate of Tourism and Free Time of the Archdiocese of Valencia (Spain) points out that it is not about multiplying masses for guiris (term used in Spain to refer to foreign tourists, especially northern Europe), but of a true evangelization task. ”

As detailed by Fr. Riveiro, pastor in the coastal town of the Pobla de Farnals, the Tourism Pastoral is part of the challenge of receiving 100 million visits from abroad, half of them concentrated in the months of northern summer.

From the sociological point of view, this sometimes creates “frictions with the local community, especially when it has been totally excluded from the tourism project” and in that context, the Catholic Church “does what it always did, being next to the people, looking for paths and trying to find the most appropriate and intelligent ways of sowing the good seed of the Gospel, which is every word of God”.

The rest is sacred

Fr. Riveiro raises the pastoral of tourism and free time under the premise that rest time is sacred: “First, because God invented it. Second, because he was the first to practice it. And third, because he wanted men to do the same as him. And, above, he gave him a religious precept character.”

Thus, the presbyter tries that the faithful consider that they go to their “summer parish”, a place where the first thing is to seek “a cordial reception”, which he usually does encouraging that, before the longest time of family coexistence, “do not fight, that life is short and, if they fight, that they fulfill the writing: that the sunset does not find them.

Second, Fr. Riveiro considers essential to try that the visitor integrates as much as possible in the parish dynamics. In this sense, it underlines the need to “know how to host them initiatives” of these people.

In their parish, some faithful are responsible for organizing the prayer of the Rosary, others to take care of Eucharistic worships and some more are offered to launch recreational activities for children.

Fr. Riveiro also highlights, as an example, that on the eve of the Day of the Virgen del Carmen, the Abraham community, an Italian missionary group, made a Marian Cantata on the Paseo Marítimo to which many faithful and curious attended.

This integration, underlines, “allows us to understand that in the church we are always at home, where we are. And so, no one is a foreigner, a visitor, a guiri”.

“Return them excited, rested and renewed”

How to do to attend season visitors? Since the visitor goes to the parish two or three times on Sundays or the best one day during his holidays, the tourism pastoral “has to play a lot with the pastoral of the image and the art of easily communicating things.”

For Father Riveiro, he considers that, otherwise, “if he is not either welcomed, he has not received a message that can stimulate it, he does not feel strongly invited to return more times in the summer.”

It also happens that there are those who only approach the parish during the summer. “I confessed last year in this same place, a year ago that I don’t confess,” is heard in the confessional. Therefore, it is also important to ensure that “that summer encounter is a very good thrust to recommend in its parish of origin.”

“The Tourism Pastoral is a partner. We are not going to pretend to do in 15 days what a pastor has not achieved throughout the year. What we wanted is to be able to return them excited, rested and renewed to his parish of origin,” adds the priest.