|
HISTORY
Cursillo began in Australia in 1965, however the birthplace of the Cursillo Movement is the Spanish Island of Mallorca, which is situated east of the Mainland of Spain in the Mediterranean Sea.
During the 1930’s the leftist Republican Government of Spain attempted to introduce atheism into all aspects of Spanish life, including the education system. It was also during this time that the Spanish Civil War brought depression and bloodshed to Mallorca.
The events that took place and their effect on society ignited a burning passion in many of the Spanish youth and they responded to a call from Pope Pius XI to begin a crusade declaring Christ as saviour. · Catholic Action and Santiago
de Compostela In an attempt to show the world that faith was alive in Spain, thousands of youth were organised into a spiritual army that was destined to make a great pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, the ancient shrine of St James the Apostle in northern Spain.
The organisation of the pilgrimage was undertaken by Catholic Action which was created in Italy by Pope Pius XI. It operated at the diocesan and national levels and its sole purpose was to take 100,000 youths to Santiago on the pilgrimage.
The method entailed training leaders in what was known as ‘Cursillo for Pilgrim Leaders’, at the diocesan level, and ‘Cursillo for Pilgrim Guides’ at the parish level. Catholic Action cursillos had the specific purpose of preparing, spiritually and materially, for the pilgrimage to Santiago. They were focused exclusively towards the wealthy young men from the upper class, students of the schools and colleges run by the great religious orders and who already belonged to Catholic Action. Each Cursillo lasted for an entire week.
The diocesan President of the Mallorca branch or Catholic Action, Jose Ferregut, recognised the potential of one Eduardo Bonnin as someone he considered to be a prime candidate for leadership in Catholic Action.
Eduardo was born into a business family who exported grains and dried fruits. The Augustinians were Eduardo’s educators and his parents hired special professors in order to give their children teachings that would be in accordance with the Catholic Church. At the time, discrimination against everyone who had converted to Catholicism and whose family name was Jewsish, was still very present, and they were compelled, in spite of their conversion, to live in ghettos and to marry within.
So Eduardo grew up in a devout Catholic family and his environment consisted solely of friends and acquaintances who were practicing Catholic, young men from the middle and rural classes. These young people spent their leisure time enjoying activities that revolved around the world of the clergy and under the ideology of Catholic Action.
In 1937 Eduardo enrolled in mandatory military service, an experience of major importance in his life. This gave him the opportunity to discover another social class. Every day he had to face the living reality of those with whom he shared the barracks, and he realized that their lives were very different to the lives of his Catholic family and friends. Eduardo came to the conclusion that the people he was with in the army camp, though de-Christianized and averse to religion, were still keeping a series of gospel values e.g. they rejected lying and hypocrisy, they were open minded to all classes, and they had a sense of friendship.
It was Ferragut who invited Eduardo to the second “Cursillo for Pilgrim Leaders” that was to take place at the monastery of Lluc during Holy week of 1943. Eduardo was a deep thinker and from what he saw and what he heard during that week, he extracted those ideas and concepts that he felt he could apply and use to satisfy the restlessness that disturbed him.
He wanted to find a way to take the reality of Christian life to the real environments, those environments where the young men of the barracks lived. Besides preparing for the Pilgrimage, he felt that the ideal thing would be to find a similar way to interest people in the other pilgrimage, the pilgrimage towards the Father, which all of life is and to do it in such a way so as to ensure that the message would also reach those who did not think that they were Christian. · A new objective Changing of environments · A method, a 3 day plan developed from The Study of Environments written by Bonnin Eduardo outlined his thinking in a paper which he named, the Study of the Environment and he shared his ideas with some of the young people from Catholic Action. They became enthused by this new method targeting a profound change in the day to day life of Christians, rather than the preparation for a pilgrimage, and together they decided to put it into practice.
The first 3 day Cursillo in Christianity was held at Cala Figuera August 1944 and between 1944 and 1948 they repeated the experience many times, inviting those Christians who were no longer practising, as well as those who were.
In 1947 Bishop Juan Hervas was appointed Bishop of Mallorca. He took a keen interest in the exciting things being done by the youth of Catholic Action. He met with them weekly and helped them prepare for the Great Pilgrimage which finally took place in 1948. The Pilgrimage was an unqualified success with some 100,000 youth attending from all of Europe and America. There were 600 who had come from Mallorca, the largest representation from any diocese.
Nevertheless, when they returned from Santiago there were many questions that surfaced. What would they do now? How could they channel this return to God to something that was truly lasting?
The answer lay in the Cursillos in Christianity and with the encouragement and support of Bishop Hervas the first Cursillos 3 days, officially sanctioned by the ecclesiastical authorities were held in 1949.
This was the beginnings of a movement that today has spread through 60 countries and numerous Christian denominations. It is estimated that some 5,000,000 Christians have experienced Cursillo in one of its various forms. |
