How Is Fortitude Among Pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago Expressed and Formed? Clues from a Study of Polish Pilgrims

Abstract

In 2019 alone, the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), one of Europe’s three most significant medieval pilgrimage routes, was followed by 347,511 pilgrims from around the world. This pilgrimage route has been the subject of numerous research projects conducted by international groups of specialists in various scientific disciplines. This study presents correlations between St. Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine on the virtue of fortitude and the experience of Polish pilgrims on the Camino based on 50 in-depth interviews conducted in the summer of 2019 on Monte do Gozo in Santiago de Compostela. This objective was achieved using the methodology of qualitative research following Steinar Kvale’s recommendations. The transcriptions of the interviews were coded based on the classifications in the Summa Theologica by Aquinas, classified into categories, and subsequently analyzed using MAXQDA Analytics Pro 2020. The virtue of fortitude is indispensable in the decision-making process and the ability to put one’s decisions into practice (Morales-Sánchez & Cabello-Medina, 2013. Journal of Business Ethics, 116(4), 717–734). One manifestation of the Camino pilgrims’ virtue of fortitude allowed them to believe that they would be more employable after they returned to their communities.