**Preface to "Pilgrimage and Religious Mobilization in Europe"**

"Europe is born on a pilgrimage."This phrase, often ascribed to the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, might be apocryphal but it captures the important role of pilgrimage in Europe. In a secularizing continent, pilgrimage is a religious ritual that is not only still flourishing but on the rise.

Religions typically have a public dimension of social gathering, arguing, and worship. The ritual of pilgrimage constitutes, in many religions, an important expression of this public dimension. Christianity, in particular Catholicism, is still the first religion that comes to mind when thinking about pilgrimage in Europe, but it is by far not the only community that engages in this praxis.

Pilgrimage has dimensions beyond the religious experience. Pilgrimages can spill over into various ways of religious mobilization with social, political, and also economic impacts. When religious experiences meet with cultural landscapes and economic interests, questions of political power arise. Varieties of pilgrimages, from spiritual tourism to religious protest, shape the public dimension of pilgrimages and have an impact on various levels of European societies.

Pilgrim studies is an emerging interdisciplinary field that takes these various sociological, cultural, geographical, economic, and political implications into account. The present book seeks to continue and elaborate on the existing research agendas and to establish a forum for new approaches. Historical traditions, current trends, comparative approaches, conceptual developments, and methodological questions are of interest. Whose frames guide the pilgrims? Who profits from the pilgrims'decisions? What kind of identity emerges when pilgrims depart and return?

The first chapter by Anna Trono and Luigi Oliva delves into the rich tradition of Italian pilgrimages and discovers innovations in a historical landscape. Jan Mohr and Julia Stenzel tell the story of items from Oberammergau's passion play. Adrian Schiffbeck analyzes the relationship between pilgrimage and political protest during the protests in the Romanian city Timis, oara in 1989. Petr Kratochvil differentiates two types of pilgrimage in the Catholic tradition and shows how they present themselves on the internet.

One of the most popular pilgrimages in Europe is the Camino, the Way of St. James. Detlef Lienau, Stefan Huber, and Michael Ackert analyze data on German-speaking pilgrims'religiosity and spirituality. Patrick Heiser discusses how the religiosity of pilgrims is expressed on the way to Santiago. Yvonne Knospe and Karsten Koenig present a study about young offenders on learning walks.

Papal Rome and the papal pilgrimages are mass events of pilgrimage with a high impact on several levels. Francisco Javier Ramon Solans presents a study on the strengthening of transatlantic ´ Catholicism through the pilgrimage to Rome in the 19th century. Mariano P. Barbato shows in a quantitative analysis of papal addresses in Fatima the cautious papal approach to mobilize pilgrims. Urszula Dudziak and Ryszard Zajaczkowski present two studies on John Paul II's travels to Poland. Johannes Ludwig Loffler focuses on virtual papal pilgrims. ¨

> **Mariano P. Barbato** *Editor*
