By Kristy Nabhan-Warren
University of North Carolina Press, 2013

Reviewed by Don Bohl
In her preface to this exhaustively researched and richly anecdotal account of the fourth-day movement in America, Kristy Nabhan-Warren remarks that the men and women who have experienced a Tres Dias weekend "may know some of the history of their movement, but what they do not know is that it is part of a global movement that traces its origins to 1944 Mallorca, Spain."
    Quite likely, many participants in our sister organizations, Walk to Emmaus,  Via de Cristo,  and Episcopal Cursillo, are equally unaware. We tend to see ourselves as separate movements, perhaps even believing that no one else uses roosters and rainbows as symbols, holds up a three-legged stool to talk about "piety, study, action" or sings "DeColores" on the way to dinner.
    Indeed, the Tres Dias Website provides a one-page history of  Tres Dias, explaining how Eduardo Bonnin, a layman, was led to create the first Cursillo de Cristiandad in the aftermath of Spanish Civil War. That history goes on to tell how this 72-hour "course in Christian living" flew to America on the wings of the Spanish Airmen who staged the first US Cursillo in Texas, and how  a handful of leaders in Newburgh, NY, negotiated with the National Cursillo Center to create an ecumenical weekend open to Protestants as well as Catholics.
    But the Tres Dias history page says nothing about how other organizations struck an agreement with the National Cursillo Center to replicate the weekend, about how Catholic Cursillo has  spread internationally, or about the numerous mavericks and spin-offs: Teens Encounter Christ, The Great Banquet, Christ Renews His Parish, Kairos Inside, and others.
    The Cursillo Movement in America sets the record straight, showing how the organizations in the movement are closely related, drawing from the same method, guided by the same Spirit, and each bringing Christians closer to Christ in its own way. This, then, is a seminal work, documenting the Cursillo movement as a major development in American religious history and placing that development in a central position, rather than on the sidelines. It is an important work for historians. It is also important for those of  us in the movement who want a broader view of  our past as well as our potential future. Kristy Nabhan-Warren provides both.
      Readers should understand that this is a book of ethnographic research, meaning that the author  set out to identify the spiritual history of the movement as written in the lives of the people who are living it. She examined written historical records, but more importantly, conducted hundreds  upon hundreds of interviews, when possible with the founders of each movement, and if they were no longer living, with leaders and also participants--a lot of participants. She grounded herself in Bonnin's writings and went on to interview those who had known him. And she experienced a Catholic Cursillo and a Kairos weekend and takes the reader inside each, describing the day-by-day progression and her personal response to each event. Tres Dias readers will be struck by how closely the Cursillo weekend parallels our own, in both format and spiritual dynamics.
    The portrait of Bonnin is especially interesting. She paints a portrait of a "slightly built, bespectacled Mallorquin" with his zest for life, sense of humor, and "abiding passion for helping laity develop their spiritual lives." We learn that the 72-hour Cursillo de Cristiandad he developed was motivated by politics as well as piety, as he attempted to distance himself from the Spanish Catholic Action movement of the 1930s and 1940s and that movement's affiliation with extreme right-wing politics of the Spanish Catholic Church and national government.
    We also learn that Bonnin liked to fold origami birds during meetings, traveled widely in American and elsewhere to support both Catholic and Protestant secretariats, and (by the way) never insisted that men experience a weekend before wives.
    But the vitality of the book is in the descriptions of each organization in the fourth-day movement and the interviews with people who have experienced weekends in each. Clearly, Kristy Nabhan-Warren is a woman of faith as well as a researcher, and she writes with reverence and with respect for how these weekends have changed lives. As she notes, the history of the movement is not filled with "co-incidents," but with "God incidents," a phrase she picked up from her interview with Tres Dias founder John Mckinney.
    In her final chapter, the author steps above her ethnographic immersion to reaffirm her central purpose, to define the Cursillo movement's place in the history of religion in  twentieth century American. She notes, for example, that the movement took root when ecumenism was in the air (Vatican II). This was also a time of the "small group movement" as well as growth in non-denominational church bodies.
    She goes on to say that ecumenism has been one critical success factor in the movement's growth. Moreover, each organization's appeal beyond denominational boundaries may influence future growth, as mainstream denominations suffer declining membership and nondenominational churches take root. Walk to Emmaus (Methodist) and  Via de Cristo (Lutheran) operate with a denominational reference, but welcome team and candidate participation from other denominations. Tres Dias, of course, was founded on a basic ecumenical premise-"To celebrate what all Christians have in common and respect the differences." For this reason, she believes that Tres Dias has the best prospects for significant growth.

Kristy Nabhan-Warren is the V.O. And Elizabeth Figge Fellow in Catholic Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Iowa. She is the author of The Virgin of El Barrio, Marian Apparitions, Catholic Evangelizing, and Mexican American Activism.

Welcome these Newly Chartered Communities!

(Chartered between September 2012 and July 2013)

Brazos Valley Tres Dias, Normangee, TX

Heart of Texas Tres Dias

Lehigh Valley Tres Dias, Allentown, PA

Irvine Tres Dias (Korean), Irvine, CA

Lviv Tres Dias, Ukraine 

Northern California Tres Dias, Sacramento Area

Tres Dias of Danmark, Denmark

South Central Kentucky Tres Dias, sponsored by Western Kentucky  

And cheer on these emerging communities and their sponsors!

Chiclayo (Peru) Tres Dias, sponsored by Peru Tres Dias

Northwest Foothills of Georgia Tres Dias, sponsored by Tres Dias of North Georgia

Kansas City Tres Dias, sponsored by Sabine Creek Tres Dias

Kingston Ontario Tres Dias, sponsored by

Midwest Kansas Tres Dias, sponsored by St. Louis Tres Dias

Northeast Georgia Tres Dias, sponsored by Tres Dias of North Georgia

Northwest Arkansas Tres Dias, sponsored by Music City Tres Dias

South Central Kentucky Tres Dias, sponsored by Western Kentucky

Tres Dias con Dios (Spanish), sponsored by Southeast Tennessee

Voronezh, Russia, sponsored by Moscow Tres Dias