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Payer of Promises
• 10 May 2007 •
 CATHOLICS from all over the world will be making their annual pilgrimage to Fátima on the evening of Saturday May 12 to attend mass and celebrate the 90th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
However, this year, for those who have vowed to make the pilgrimage but can't fulfil their promise, they have a new rent-a-pilgrim service introduced by a Portuguese man and named “Payer of Promises”.
For 1,800 euros, Pilgrim Gil offers to make the journey in their place and send them a certificate stamped along the way to prove that he really walked all the way to Fatima. Carlos Gil, 42, who owns a small computer company, calls himself a “Pagador de Promessas” (Payer of Promises). He explains: “It is a traditional figure, much loved in the Middle Ages to whom wealthy families would rely upon to cover, on their behalf, the Sacred Ways, make a wish or show their gratefulness. As a Pilgrim and Payer of Promises, I retake the Tradition.”
Gil said he took up the medieval practice five years ago when he suddenly felt an urge to walk to Fatima. "I make the trip to Fatima once or twice a year because it elevates my spirit," said Gil. "Sometimes the trip is so intense that I forget I'm doing it to fulfil my client's promises." Fatima's claim to fame is the Sanctuary of Fatima, built after the Virgin Mary was reported to have appeared six times to three shepherd children on a hillside near the town in 1917. One of the children, Lucia dos Santos, became a nun after having the visions and is said to have foretold the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in May 1981. She died in 2005, while the other two children died in 1919 and 1920. Pope John Paul later placed one of the bullets that nearly killed him in the crown of the statue of Fatima.
Every year 3.5 million people flock to the shrine to celebrate the Virgin's appearance and Gil goes in the place of some of the would-be pilgrims although he would not reveal how many people he walks for.
Gil said he has also made already other important pilgrimages: “In 2000, I made the Inca track on foot to Machu Picchu in Peru and completed a 36-days horse ride from Sintra to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. In 2003, I also travelled to Portugal’s former African colony of Angola to walk from Luanda to the Our Lady of Muxima shrine.”
Gil is offering his “rent-a-pilgrim” service in four languages on his website, www.peregrino.org where he accepts credit card payments, but insists he isn’t doing the trips for the money. |  Return to Top
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