Keywords
Roman Catholic Church
pilgrimage studies
Christian heritage
Cracow
Poland
How to Cite
Abstract
This paper analyzes the World Youth Day (WYD) – a cyclical Catholic global youth gathering – by focusing on the 2016 WYD in Kraków, Poland. The WYD is described as a multilayered event that generates and mirrors conflicting and conflating discourses operating at the global, national, and local levels of Catholicism and various perceptions of these discourses. The paper discusses the massive and festive character of the WYD, its branding potential as a typical mega-event as well as its religious dimension as a modern pilgrimage. Even though the WYD is organized cyclically and follows a general, established schedule, references to local and national contexts shape and influence its form in the specific environment of a host state and city. This paper shows that in European locations the concept of “Christian heritage” is actively used by the Church framing the event in religious terms. This framing relates to the “New Evangelization” policy which seeks to revive Christianity in an “old continent”, as well as emphasizes the religious and spiritual potential of historic Christian sites, objects and practices in the context of an international youth gathering. Additionally, the Kraków case study demonstrates the role of local and national political processes and the branding strategies of the Polish Church and the Polish government.
References
Albera Dionigi, Eade John 2015, International Perspectives on Pilgrimage Studies: Putting the Anglophone Contribution in Its Place, [in:] D. Albera, J. Eade (eds.), International Perspectives on Pilgrimage Studies: Itineraries, Gaps and Obstacles. Routledge, New York and London, pp. 1–22.
Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae in Polonia AD 2019 2019, Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego SAC, Warszawa.
Arkuszewski Bartosz 2017, Przedmiot-relikwia a postać Jana Pawła II w krakowskim kontekście muzealnym, Prace Etnograficzne, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 351–367.
Baraniecka-Olszewska Kamila, Lubańska Magdalena 2018, Religious Imageries at Polish Catholic shrines: Authors’ Introduction, Journal of Global Catholicism, vol. 2, no. 2, p. 6–25.
Bogacz-Wojtanowska Ewa, Gaweł Łukasz, Góral Anna (eds.) 2016, Światowe Dni Młodzieży 2016 jako fenomen społeczny, kulturowy i religijny, Stowarzyszenie Gmin i Powiatów Małopolski, Kraków.
Coleman Simon 2019, On the productivity of pilgrimage palimpsests: Traces and translocations in an expanding field, Journal of Global Catholicism, vol. 3, issue 2, p. 2–11.
Coleman Simon, Eade John 2018, Introduction. Pilgrimage and political economy: Introduction to a research agenda, [in:] S. Coleman, J. Eade (eds.), Pilgrimage and political economy: Translating the sacred. Berghahn, New York, Oxford, pp. 1–20.
Davie Grace 2007, The sociology of religion, SAGE Publications, Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore.
Garnett Jane, Harris Alana 2013, Canvassing the faithful: Image, agency and the lived religiosity of devotion to the Divine Mercy, [in:] G. Giordanand, L. Woodheads (eds.), Prayer in Religion and Spirituality, Brill, Leiden, Oxford, pp. 77-102.
Gonzalez Luciana Thais Villa, Mariz Cecília Loreto, Zahra Anne 2019, World Youth Day: Contemporaneous pilgrimage and hospitality, Annals of Tourism Research, vol. 76, pp. 80–90.
Góral Anna 2016, Organizacja Światowych Dni Młodzieży 2016, [in:] E. Bogacz-Wojtanowska, Ł. Gaweł, A. Góral (eds.), Światowe Dni Młodzieży 2016 jako fenomen społeczny, kulturowy i religijny, Stowarzyszenie Gmin i Powiatów Małopolski, Kraków, pp. 45-70.
Halter Nicholas 2013, The Australian Catholic Church and the public sphere: World Youth Day 2008, Journal of Religious History, vol.37, no. 2, pp. 261–282.
Hepp Andreas, Krönert Veronika 2009, Religious media events: The Catholic “World Youth Day” as an example for the mediatization and individualization of religion, [in:] N. Couldry, A. Hepp, F. Krotz (eds.), Media Events in a Global Age, Routledge, London, pp. 265-282.
Hemmonsbey Janice, Tichaawa Tembi M. 2019, Using non-mega events for destination branding: A stakeholder perspective, GeoJournal of Tourism and Geosites, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 252–266.
Kieca Michalina, Kleska Łukasz 2017, Światowe Dni Młodzieży. Fenomen kulturowo-religijny, Polskie Towarzystwo Religioznawcze, Warszawa.
Kotwas Marta, Kubik Jan 2019, Symbolic Thickening of Public Culture and the Rise of Right-Wing Populism in Poland, East European Politics and Societies and Cultures, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 435–471.
Lambek Michael 2013, What is “religion” for anthropology? And what has anthropology brought to “religion”?, [in:] J. Boddy, M. Lambek (eds.), A companion to the anthropology of religion, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Blackwell, Chichester, pp. 1–32.
Mandes Sławomir, Sadłoń Wojciech 2018, Religion in a globalized culture: Institutional innovation and continuity of Catholicism – The case of World Youth Day, Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, vol. 9, pp. 202–221.
Meyer Birgit 2013, Mediation and immediacy: Sensational forms, semiotic ideologies, and the question of the medium, [in:] J. Boddy, M. Lambek (eds.), A Companion to the anthropology of religion. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., Blackwell, Chichester, pp. 309–326.
Niedźwiedź Anna 2017a, Framing the pope within urban space: John Paul II and the cityscape of Kraków, [in:] P.J. Margry, V. Hegner (eds.), Spiritualizing the city: Agency and resilience of the urban and urbanesque habitat, Routledge, New York, pp. 81–101.
Niedźwiedź Anna 2017b, Globalny katolicyzm w polskiej scenografii – ŚDM 2016 w Krakowie, Prace Etnograficzne, vol. 45, no. 3, pp. 277–297.
Niedźwiedź Anna 2017c, The multivocality of space and the creation of heritages: New shrines in an old city, Anthropological Notebooks, vol. 23, pp. 63–86.
Norman Alex, Johnson Mark 2011, World Youth Day: The Creation of a Modern Pilgrimage Event for Evangelical Intent, Journal of Contemporary Religion, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 371–385.
Odbiór Światowych Dni Młodzieży i jego kulturowe konteksty. Raport z badania uczestników Światowych Dni Młodzieży Kraków 2016, 2016, Narodowe Centrum Kultury i Instytut Statystyki Kościoła Katolickiego, Warszawa. https://www.nck.pl/badania/projekty-badawcze/raport-swiatowe-dni-mlodziezy , accessed 14.07.2019.
Pfadenhauer Michaela 2010, The eventization of faith as a marketing strategy: World Youth Day as an innovative response of the Catholic Church to pluralization, International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, vol. 15, pp. 382–394.
Pokojska Weronika, Pudełko Agnieszka 2016, Światowe Dni Młodzieży w liczbach. Podsumowanie, [in:] E. Bogacz-Wojtanowska, Ł. Gaweł, A. Górach (eds.), Światowe Dni Mlodzieży 2016 jako fenomen społeczny, kulturowy i religijny, Stowarzyszenie Gmin i Powiatów Małopolski, Kraków, pp. 25–43.
Povedák István 2014, Introduction: From heroes to celebrities. Problems of definition and potential solutions, [in:] I. Povedák (ed.), Heroes and celebrities in Central and Eastern Europe, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Szeged, pp. 7–17.
Reader Ian 2014, Pilgrimage in the marketplace, Routledge, New York, Abingdon.
Rymarz Richard 2006, World Youth Day, [in:] E.M. Dowling, W.G. Scarlett (eds.), Encyclopedia of religious and spiritual development, Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi, pp. 486–487.
Sadłoń Wojciech 2016, Differentiation, polarization and religious change in Poland at the turn of 20th and 21st century, Przegląd Religioznawczy – The Religious Studies Review, no. 4 (262), pp. 25–42.
Soćko-Mucha Alicja 2018, Światowe Dni Młodzieży 2016 w Krakowie – zjawisko skarnalizowane?, Journal of Urban Ethnology, vol. 16, pp. 81-91.
Steil Carlos Alberto 2018, The paths of Saint James in Brazil: Body, spirituality and market, [in:] S. Coleman, J. Eade (eds.), Pilgrimage and political economy: Translating the sacred. Berghahn, New York, Oxford, pp.155–172.
Temmerman Martina, Trioen Marit 2009, Idolatry versus authenticity: A lexical and systemic-functional analysis of the coverage of the World Youth Day 2005 in the Flemish press, Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 183–201.
Turner Victor, Turner Edith 1978, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, Columbia University Press, New York.