Pope Benedict Visits Santiago -- plus stats for 2010 through Oct 31

[HuskyNerd]

Some words of Pope Benedict XVI from inside the Cathedral at Santiago:

"To go on pilgrimage", he said, "is not simply to visit a place to admire its treasures of nature, art or history. To go on pilgrimage really means to step out of ourselves in order to encounter God where He has revealed Himself, where His grace has shone with particular splendour and produced rich fruits of conversion and holiness among those who believe".

"In this Holy Year of Compostela, I too, as the Successor of Peter, wished to come in pilgrimage to the 'House of St. James', as it prepares to celebrate the eight-hundredth anniversary of its consecration. I have come to confirm your faith, to stir up your hope and to entrust to the Apostle's intercession your aspirations, struggles and labours in the service of the Gospel. As I embraced the venerable statue of the saint, I also prayed for all the children of the Church, which has her origin in the mystery of the communion that is God".

While I'm no fan of this particular Pope I do appreciate the historic nature of the visit during the Jubilee Year. Pope John Paul II and before him, Pope John XXIII visited Santiago. The Pope's visit caps a year in which the Camino has reached a modern high water mark for pilgrims. Through October of this year 258,091 pilgrims received their compostelas in Santiago, of which 108,214 identified "religion" as their sole motivation. Those who identified "Religion and Culture" as their motivation are another approximately 40% of the total. The last Holy Year, 2004, which was formerly the highest year for pilgrimage to Santiago in the 20th century and saw a total of 179,944 compostelas received -- 80,000 fewer than January through October of this year. Religious pilgrimage is still an important part of the Camino, and the Pope's presence reminds us of the importance of pilgrimage within the Christian, particularly Catholic, faith.

[Covey]

There was an interesting piece in a UK newspaper yesterday covering the visit to Santiago which mentioned that the Pope was returning to Santiago in 2012 for a World Youth Festival. Presumably this is a repeat of the last Monte Gozo celebrations.

From the reports of the Pope's speeches in Santiago, one was not quite sure if he was there as a pilgrim or as Head of the Roman Catholic Church cracking the whip at an increasingly secular population in what was once a very hard line orthodox Catholic country.

[Covey]

According to the Santiago Pilgrim Office, a grand total of 42 pilgrims received their Compostella yesterday which was the day the Pope visited Santiago! The numbers were running at over 2000 a day during the summer months and last month were still averaging 1000 per day.

[Covey]

Typical newspaper accuracy!! The World Youth Day is actually next year in 2011 and is being celebrated in Madrid, not Santiago in August and the Pope will be celebrating Mass on Sunday 21st Aug 2011 in Madrid.

[InOrlando]

HuskyNerd:
I am wondering: why is there an anti-Obama political ad next to your posting? Or am I the only one who can see it?

[Covey]

InOrlando........ I don't know what you are seeing, but HuskyNerd's post does not appear here in the UK with any "political" ad. As a moderator I should see it if it was there, so I suspect it might be something on your computer, or INTERNET link.

[HuskyNerd]

Very odd . . . . I don't see any ad next to my posting at all. If you could take a screen shot next time it pops up it's be fascinating to see what it's all about. BTW the way GoogleAds work are they catch key words in a posting and attach an ad that seems to relate. I've looked through my posting and don't see any ad that would spur an anti-Obama ad. Sad to think this is happening -- particularly because my Obama 2008 bumper sticker is proudly displayed on my Toyota Prius!

[Leslie]

The ads that are shown on the site are less when you are signed in. When not signed in there is an ad beside the first post in each thread, this ad goes away once you sign in. Setup this way so there are less ad for members.

Re the type of ad.

It used to be that ads were only shown that were relevant to the page. So that ads on this page would have been about the Camino, perhaps religion, maybe walking/ adventure holiday - all was decided by the words on the page. In some way this made life quite easy for webmaster to show relevant ads on their site.

However the ads you see can be different to everyone else. When you use Google they drop a little bit of code on your computer called a cookie. This cookie tracks you from website to website. Google now shows ads that are more relevant to the person and the persons browsing history.

For example because I work in online marketing even when I come here I can see some ads on website optimizer or the likes. So if you spend time browsing a certain type of website you will get more ads in front of you about that topic.

I clear my cookies several times each day - mostly because of work. I also have my computer setup to clear cookies whenever the computer is shut down or sleeps. (also from working online for several years I have become a bit paranoid about privacy)

Note: I don't have any additional tracking setup on this site. I have an analytic package running which collects anonymous stats.

[InOrlando]

Thanks for the comprehensive and informative comments, Leslie:
I'll start clearing cookies more often, because it was particularly disturbing to see a huge photograph of the President, beneath which there was some sort of specious, rhetorical question about "fascism."

And I'm glad, HuskyNerd, that it wasn't something you had deliberately embedded in your post.

I may not agree with everyone's political positions on the President, but I certainly don't want to engage that debate at the same time I'm in deep, wistful, nostalgic reverie about my Camino pilgrimage.