Seminario Menor closed until at least the 15th April

[Priscillian]

I have just learned that the Seminario is closed for the time being, and there doesn´t seem to be any alternative except Monte do Gozo. Basically, newly arrived pilgrims, you are on your own, which is, in Spanish una Verguenza de Verdad!
I am staying at the Hostal Alameda and I couldn´t recommend it more highly. I just dripped off some brochures at the Tourist Office.
Tracy
www.pilgrimagetoheresy.com

[Leslie]

Tracy have you just finished? Would you write a guest post for me for the Camino blog? And yes no problem referring back to your site and book - would be great.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks

[Priscillian]

Dear Leslie,
It depends on what you mean by "just finished", but I thought you might like a story, as might the walkers and bikers on the Camino, and all future references.
On another Forum "Gareth" posted: "God laughs when you are making plans", or some such. I had a flight booked to Santiago from Malaga to talk to some profs at the U. of Santiago, do some research, go "carabout" in my rented car.
Hah!
To begin with, I don't have a credit card: didn't need one (if I can't afford it, I don't buy it - use debit card) but needed one for aforementioned rental car from Lavacolla. Card was held up because person who applied went on holiday without telling anyone about my applic. Then, if that wasn't enough, the factory that produces the actual cards, went on strike! Result: no card. The night before my flight, I couldn't find my passport, nor my "tarjeta de Residencia de Espana". No problem. Am only flying within Spain after all
Not!
You get the idea.
What to do now!
The Camino is calling me...damn it, I'll drive. Did 1180 kms in 14 hours straight, overnight. My, but those spires at 10:00 a.m. looked almost as impressive as they did after 800 kms "andando"!
Never underestimate a Pilgrim. There are many ways of pilgrimage!
Anyway, "have I completed?" Yes, am home, through horrible rain in Salamanca and Sevilla, and fog all the way from Ronda to Marbella (the Bandit's Route through the mountains - believe me: no picnic even in the daytime!)
Was it worth it?
You better believe it!
Tracy
http://pilgrimagetoheresy.com
P.S. have got lots of ideas for second book and people in Galicia very receptive to the (alternative?) idea of Priscillan.
P.P.S. Pilgrims...you can go up on the roof of the Cathedral (and look down on the nave) if you take the "Tour" at the Palce of Bishop Gelmirez. Ask for Carlos...very knowlegable guide, and definitely not to be missed!)

[Priscillian]

What Blog? Yes, of course, post whatever you like. And while I am here, does anyone know anything about a Bishop named Diego Pelaez, the first architect of the Cathedral - dismissed in 1088 and imprisoned on charges of treason?

[Priscillian]

REe: typo. For "dripped off" read "dropped off"! Must have been remembering a previous Camino!

[spanishlancer]

Originally Posted by Priscillian

I have just learned that the Seminario is closed for the time being, and there doesn´t seem to be any alternative except Monte do Gozo. Basically, newly arrived pilgrims, you are on your own, which is, in Spanish una Verguenza de Verdad!
I am staying at the Hostal Alameda and I couldn´t recommend it more highly. I just dripped off some brochures at the Tourist Office.
Tracy
www.pilgrimagetoheresy.com

The Seminario is scheduled to reopen its doors on 31st March 2009

Ron

[murphydog201]

The Seminario is open now. I stayed there this past Tuesday and Wednesday.

[Oak Hill Walkers]

For Priscillian,

Some belated tidbits on Bishop Diego Pelaez:

As we are told by the Historia Compostelana, Bishop Diego Peláez of Santiago de Compostela was brought before the bishops and legate in chains and caused to surrender his pastoral ring and staff and to declare himself unworthy of the episcopate. Probably as a consolation to the bishop of Burgos and his supporters, Abbot Peter of the Castilian monastery of Cardeñas was chosen as the new bishop of Santiago and confirmed the document mentioned above as "bishop-elect."

[Oak Hill Walkers]

More on Bishop Pelaez: (despite the error message, the link below actually works, for me.)

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[Oak Hill Walkers]

And, to beat a dead horse, this:

Among his first actions after his return to Spain was a journey into Galicia to consecrate the new cathedral church of Braga on 28 August 1089. This was not simply a case of a distinguished churchman performing a ceremonial function on a great occasion. It was a considered statement about who mattered most in the Galician church, a claim of the most public kind for the rights of the church of Toledo. It had not been Bernardo's first visit to Galicia. In the summer of 1087 he had visited Lugo -- whose bishopric was probably vacant at the time; we cannot discount the possibility that he had some share in the election of bishop Amor -- where he had presided over a suit between bishop Gonzalo of Mondoñedo and the monks of Lorenzana, and had come down strongly in favour of the latter. He had also interested himself in the affairs of the church of Santiago de Compostela after the resignation -- in effect, the deposition -- of bishop Diego Peláez in 1088. This is a difficult matter to elucidate. The canonicity of the proceedings at Husillos, where Diego had been removed from his see, was impugned by the pope. Bernardo seems to have been caught between two fires: Urban II wished to have Diego restored, but to this Alfonso VI was irreconcilably hostile. Diego's release from captivity may have been effected at Bernardo's instance. What is certain is that the pope consulted the archbishop of Toledo in 1089 about the choice of a legate to Spain, part of whose brief was to sort out the Compostela business. The man chosen, cardinal Rainerio, later to succeed to the papacy as Paschal II, held a council at León in 1090 at which Pedro de Cardeña, Alfonso VI's bishop of Compostela, was deposed. But he could not bring about Diego Peláez's reinstatement, and the bishopric of Compostela remained vacant. On a rather different front, we may surmise that Toledan pressure was being exerted throughout these years to enforce Galician conformity in the matter of the adoption of the Roman liturgy, decreed in 1080 but, it would seem, only reluctantly accepted by conservative Galician churchmen. And we can detect Bernardo's hand as well as the royal family's in some of the appointments to north-western sees in the 1090s; in Gerald's to Braga in 1095, for example, and in Maurice's to Coimbra in 1099.