If you are a Roman Catholic and you’ve vowed to make the pilgrimage to Fatima in Portugal, famous for religious visions, but you can’t fulfill your promise you can now rent-a-pilgrim.
Pilgrim Gil will make the journey in your place for the low fee of 2,500 euros (1,671 pounds), and he’ll even send you a certificate stamped along the way to prove he walked your every step.
Carlos Gil, 42, is also a rent-a-pilgrim. He took up this practice four years ago when he suddenly “felt an urge to walk to Fatima” and said charging each client was simply a way to keep doing what he loves. Gil says “It is a romantic way for my clients to thank God for what they have, like buying a candle or a plaster statue of Fatima,”.
To guarantee to his clients that he made the trip on foot, Gil has a system of handing his customers a certificate after every journey with various stamps from places along the way.