The Cursillo originated in the grim circumstances of Spain in the 1940s, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. One of the war’s battlefronts had been the island of Majorca, which had suffered invasion and occupation. By 1944, peace was restored across Spain, and faithful Catholic laypeople were seeking ways to restore and rebuild faith among the ruins. Not coincidentally, it was at this same time of disasters, in 1943, that Italian Catholics founded the very influential Focolare movement. Technically, groups like Focolare are New Ecclesial Movements, which have for decades played so central a role in the Vatican’s hopes of rebuilding the faith in secular Europe.
Seeking renewal, Spanish Catholics proposed to revive the great pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, and in preparation for that, the Catholic Action movement planned a series of training sessions for potential leaders. In Majorca, a group of laymen led by Eduardo Bonnín together created what they called a short course in Christianity, Cursillo de Cristiandad. I have to be careful here in avoiding the temptation to call Bonnín the founder of the movement. Historian Kristy Nabhan-Warren quotes one of his friends as recalling that, “Eduardo adamantly refused to be called the ‘founder’ of Cursillos. He would say El Fundador [Founder] is the name of a brandy and I am not a brandy!’”
So what was the “little course”? People would meet together in a three day retreat, where they heard a series of lectures by priests and lay leaders. The communal experience is an important part of the program, and is recreated in subsequent reunion meetings and friendship groups. Graduates of the “Course” learn certain terms and phrases that mark them as members, including the language of being “In Colors,” or under God’s Grace. In broad outline, that has been the format of Cursillo gatherings ever since. Of the three days, the one that matters most is the fourth, when participants re-enter the world, nourished and strengthened, to apply what they have learned. That is why the Cursillo and its offshoots are called “Fourth Day Movements.”
The Cursillo movement grew out of a very specific political setting, when Spain was still under a rigid Rightist dictatorship, and its connections with other Western nations were difficult. Only very gradually did the victorious wartime powers decide that Spain could be treated as a potential ally, rather than a Fascist enemy. And that decision had far-reaching consequences for religious renewal. In the 1950s, the US was training Spanish military flyers, two of whom — Bernardo Vadell and Augustin Palomino — were based in Waco. Together with a priest, Father Gabriel Fernandez, they held the first Cursillo weekend on US soil in 1957. And that is how a product of Western Mediterranean Catholic devotion traveled to the New World.