Father João Basto, a priest from the Diocese of Viana do Castelo, was the guest on the ECCLESIA Program on RTP2 to traverse significant places from his childhood in the Upper Minho, exploring the relationship between physical geography and the construction of Christian identity in border spaces. The guided journey passed through places that marked the priest's memories, from the pilgrimage to Nossa Senhora da Agonia to the Montedor lighthouse, where he reflected on human finitude and the condition of possibility that the sea represents.
During the visit, Father João Basto spoke about popular religiosity and the historical legacy of «smuggling» that characterizes the towns that unite Portugal and Spain. He emphasized that the border is not merely a line of friendship, but a tension of proximity and tension, where faith manifests as a «kind of permanent transgression». This idea of contradiction between the conservative and the avant-garde was highlighted at the Matriz Church of Caminha, whose architecture evidences the commercial and cultural exchange with the Galicia region.
The itinerary also included the town of Caminha, where the confrontation with the passage of time awakens childhood memories, transforming the locality into a «city of imagination, full of echoes, full of voices». The journey ended at the Chapel of Calvary in Gondarém, a riverside village along the Minho River, where the priest noted that landscapes are cultural, shaping those who inhabit them as much as they are shaped by them.
This broadcast concluded the 'Paths in My Land' cycle, presented by the ECCLESIA Program in recent weeks, every Thursday on RTP2.
