[Gocamino] Pilgrims to the end of August

[blaroli at aol.com]

Hello you all,
By the end of August the Pilgrims' Office had granted 86,018 Compostelas to Santiago pilgrims who had met the qualifications therefor.
Of this number 41,145 pilgrims came from 91 countries other than Spain.? The largest number of foreign pilgrims, 9,574, came from Germany, followed by those from Italy, 8,141; from France, 4,852; from Portugal, 2,799; from the United States, 1,648 and from Holland, 1,242.
Pilgrims came from all over the world, including Cuba, Israel, Jamaica, Vietnam, Iran, Algiers, Ethiopia and even Irak.
There has been an increase of 12.2% in the number of pilgrims compared to those of 2006. If the trend continues the total number of pilgrims for the year may exceed 113,000.
This surge has caused considerable problems which are being discussed by the Confraternities with the view of having some possible solutions in place before the possible millions which may converge on the Camino the next Holy Year, 2010, which will be the last Holy Year for eleven years.
The Confraternity in Vienna drafted several suggestions which were forwarded to the Archconfraternity for consideration.? It appears that the same suggestions were being made by confraternities from Germany, Italy, and several other countries.
While the Viennese and German suggestions seemed eminently practical and realistic to me,?I fear that?they may appear controversial to a lot of past, present and future pilgrims.
But that's the way it goes..... I suppose.

Hugs!

Rosina
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