On Hosting, Pilgrimage and “Indirect Mission”

Abstract

This paper brings together perspectives on hosting and pilgrimage to show how both can contribute to forms of “indirect mission”: a type of social action where overt intervention for missionary purposes is kept to a minimum, but where an implicit missionary intent is retained. While bringing in comparative material on cathedrals, my ethnographic focus is on the English pilgrimage site of Walsingham, a location of both Anglican and Roman Catholic shrines. I show how shrines work to become sites of reception for publics ranging from pious pilgrims to members of the general population as they seek recognition within both Catholic and secular liberal contexts.