Celebrating the Camino de Santiago, Past & Present

In this talk, Fr. Kevin A. Codd, author of the autobiographical reflection To the Field of Stars: A Pilgrim's Journey to Santiago de Compostela, and DePaul's own Fr. Chris Robinson, CM, a four-time Camino pilgrim, will team up to discuss their own personal experiences of walking the Camino and the ways the Camino has changed over the years.

An ancient network of pilgrimage routes that spreads through much of Europe, the Camino de Santiago was established over 1,000 years ago—in the 9th century—and ultimately winds its way through northwestern Spain to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Here, tradition holds that the remains of James, the apostle of Jesus, are buried, and for centuries, Christians have embarked on the Camino as a form of active prayer or spiritual retreat. In recent decades, it has also gained popularity with hikers, cyclists, and organized tour groups, and several Camino routes have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

In 2025, over 500,000 pilgrims arrived in Santiago de Compostela, and 2027 marks a special Holy Year, called a Xacobeo Year. Occuring only 12 times each century, a Holy Year takes place when the July 25 feast day of St. James (Santiago) falls on a Sunday. Throughout the entire year, special celebrations are held in Santiago de Compostela, and a special door to the Cathedral is opened during that year for pilgrims to enter.

:: ABOUT THE SPEAKERS ::

Fr. Kevin A. Codd is a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Spokane, WA, who has recently retired and now serves the Catholic expat community in Cuenca, Ecuador. In 2003, seeking to take stock of his life, he set out from the town of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port at the foot of the Pyrenees in France to walk a 35-day Camino pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. The experience, which he describes in To the Field of Stars, would profoundly change his life.

In 2007, he completed a 2nd pilgrimage from Louvain, Belgium, to Compostela, which he chronicled in another book, Beyond Even the Stars. From 2001 to 2007, he served as rector-president of The American College, at the time a Catholic seminary at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (aka, KU Leuven). While there, he received a PhD in theology.

Fr. Chris Robinson, CM, is a Vincentian priest who has been at DePaul University since 2001, where he served in campus ministry and continues to teach for the Religious Studies Department. He came to know Fr. Codd at KU Leuven where he earned degrees in both systematic theology and postmodern philosophy.

These days, outside of DePaul, he also serves on the board of directors at DePaul College Prep and at the Chicago parish of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. And he is an enthusiastic four-time Camino pilgrim, having accompanied a group of DePaul students on part of the journey and twice having started the trek in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France.