Ancient paths of meaning

Portia Berry-Kilby on why pilgrimage is growing ever more popular

At the time of writing this article, the annual Chartres Pilgrimage in France has just announced that it will cap numbers of registered pilgrims at 18,000 this year. Last year the pilgrimage boasted a record number of 16,000 pilgrims – including a large number of young people – and it was the first time the organisers had to turn away hopeful participants due to capacity constraints since the pilgrimage began in 1983.

Termed by some Catholic media as a “victim of its own success”, the pilgrimage’s mammoth number of participants shows no signs of dwindling any time soon. Blisters from walking miles on end while praying is supposedly back in vogue.

The Chartres pilgrimage is not unique in attracting widespread interest. Traditional pilgrimage routes both here in the UK and abroad have witnessed increased interest across the past few decades, with a surge of interest in the past few years.

The pilgrim office at Santiago de Compostela in Spain reports that 2023 was their busiest year ever, with 446,053 pilgrims earning a Compostela, the official Latin certificate awarded to those walking at least 100 km on the Camino de Santiago – two percent higher than the year before. This works out at more than one thousand pilgrims a day. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe welcomed a record 12.5 million pilgrims in 2022. And, closer to home, albeit on a much smaller scale, record numbers attended the Latin Mass

Society’s Walsingham Pilgrimage in 2023. Never let it be said that the LMS can’t keep up with the latest trends!

But what is driving the uptick in interest? The possible answers to this question are, of course, many and varied. And odds are we won’t all agree on the core driver of what has made pilgrimage popular again. That is not to say, however, the question is not worthy of consideration and that broader lessons cannot be learnt from the phenomenon.

The British Pilgrimage Trust conducted a survey that found half the respondents cited either emotional well-being, connecting with nature, spirituality, or cultural heritage as their main motivations for pilgrimage, and a mere 13 percent quoted religious observance as their primary motivation. In a western world of increasing secularism, it is understandable that the reasons for pilgrimage are less religious than we might hope.

It will surprise no one that devout Catholics are not solely to thank for the surge of interest in pilgrimage –and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Of course, all Catholics should pray that those who turn to pilgrimage for whatever reason might complete their journey closer to a realisation of the Truth and a love for God than when they started. It would be cynical to suppose men and women could journey along ancient paths of meaning without discovering something of a higher purpose in the process.

Guy Stagg, an author who went on pilgrimage from Canterbury to Jerusalem in 2013, recently wrote a review for The Spectator of author Oliver Smith’s On This Holy Island: A Modern Pilgrimage Across Britain. The book was published in March 2024, and in it, Smith traces many of the ancient pilgrim paths of Britain.

In his review, Stagg assesses that, “Visiting shrines allows people to experience ritual without having to accept any difficult doctrines or unfashionable teaching”. He therefore credits the “spiritual-notreligious” category with helping to bolster the pilgrimage revival.  But he caveats such an observation by wondering, “if something’s lost when pilgrimage is stripped of any religious content beyond a vague sense of the numinous. If there’s no attempt at inner transformation, it simply becomes a lofty word for a walk, or else joins the yoga retreats and meditation apps as a spiritual practice repackaged for the wellness industry.”

The British Pilgrimage Trust has done an impressive job in recent years at marketing pilgrimage routes to modern day saints and sinners alike. The trust is a charity that, “aims to advance British pilgrimage as a form of cultural heritage that promotes holistic wellbeing”.

As well as providing resources for self-guided pilgrimages, they organise day pilgrimages along many of the old Christian pilgrimage routes in Britain, promoting, “the practice of pilgrimage itself by suggesting people say ‘bring your own beliefs’.” Although they could be criticised for paganising religious routes with talk of “intentions” rather than prayers, they also should be praised for introducing the non-religious to aspects of the Christian tradition. If there is a growing desire for meaning in everyday life and a search for an encounter with the numinous, then we should not be too quick to dismiss the provision of easy access to a Christian practice.

I am sure many of us have heard stories of friends or relatives who journeyed a pilgrim route and returned either reverted, converted, or more convicted of the faith. Granted, the sample cohort is selfselecting, but the result maintains. Ardent ramblers might take to the Camino for the scenery and sunshine, but that doesn’t mean they’ll leave with nothing more than a tan.

Whether it’s fitness, fashion, or faith that leads people to make a pilgrimage, it is a trend that’s captured a spread of ages, with younger generations being no exception. American youth offer a fine example of young Catholics rediscovering pilgrimage as a form of prayer. The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage has captured the attention of many young people, and will rely on young people for its “perpetual pilgrims”. The Eucharistic Pilgrimage aims,

“To inspire a movement of Catholics across the United States who are healed, converted, formed, and unified by an encounter with Jesus in the Eucharist – and who are then sent out on mission ‘for the life of the world’.”

Pilgrims will, “accompany Jesus in the Eucharist across 6500+ miles of the United States, stopping at many holy sites and churches along the way”.

The so-called perpetual pilgrims are 24 young people who have committed to making the entire journey along one of the four main routes: “This small, dedicated group will travel full-time from May until July 2024, accompanying Jesus as he draws near to countless communities across the nation on his way to the 10th National Eucharistic Congress.”

Any amount of research into those perpetual pilgrims will show a dynamic group of young people with varied backgrounds and talents. A mammoth pilgrimage does not attract fitness freaks or rad trads only — it draws Catholics from all corners. Archbishop Andrew Cozzens predicts that the Eucharistic Pilgrimage, “will be a powerful, once-in-a-lifetime witness of how Jesus Christ comes close to us and invites all to encounter him in the Eucharist”. I doubt he will be disappointed.

The youth appeal of the US Eucharistic Pilgrimage reflects patterns many readers of this magazine will have observed closer to home. The Latin Mass Society’s Walsingham pilgrimage is well known for attracting young pilgrims, as is the Chartres pilgrimage. Similarly, the World Youth Day in 2023 saw a record number of nations represented. Of course, there is a traditionalist streak in many of those pilgrims - with around 40 percent of French pilgrims to World Youth Day attending the Traditional Latin Mass at least occasionally - but the Eucharistic Pilgrimage shows that the cohort attracted by pilgrimage is a little wider in terms of liturgical preference. This is no bad thing. Although it may feel most fitting to chant the Pater Noster and Ave Maria beneath banners and behind billows of incense, pilgrimages need not be limited to those with affection for the Old Rite.

Henry VIII banned pilgrimage in 1538. As part of Cromwell’s Injunctions it was forbidden to place, “trust and affiance in any other works devised by men’s phantasies besides Scripture; as in wandering to pilgrimages, offering of money, candles, or tapers to images or relics, or kissing or licking the same”.

Now, almost 500 years later, “wandering to pilgrimages” has made a comeback. What is remarkable is that these old pilgrimage routes stood the test of time and now flourish despite years of suppression.