Organized by the Medieval Institute, Pilgrimage for Healing and Liberation will take us from the deep past to the present day to discover what the practice of pilgrimage offered our ancestors and why it remains attractive to so many today.

Every year millions of people visit the holy sites of Jerusalem, Mecca, and Mount Wutai. More than tourists, these travelers are pilgrims making intentional journeys to the sacred places of their religious tradition. Pilgrimage is a practice both ancient and trendy. In recent years, we’ve seen members of the faithful and the religiously unaffiliated alike walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain and travel to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. Amazingly, pilgrims have traversed these routes for centuries. That they keep coming attests to a deeply human desire for encounter with the divine.

Pilgrimage is a truly global, cross-cultural and transhistorical phenomenon. It shaped the development of each of the major world religions. The embodied act of making a pilgrimage was meant to catalyze spiritual movement and growth. Pilgrims seek to be changed by their experience. That may be why pilgrimage is currently being used in work for racial justice and healing. The journey both symbolizes and realizes the transformation necessary for us to become the beloved community.

These conversations will prepare a group of students and community members to make an actual pilgrimage to Chicago to pray for the canonization of Venerable Augustus Tolton (1854-97), the first Black Catholic priest to be ordained for the United States. Fr. Tolton is one of the six African-American candidates for sainthood.

Pilgrimage for Healing and Liberation is co-sponsored by the Department of Africana Studies, the Department of Theology, Program of Liberal Studies, Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion, and the Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience. We are so grateful that you are joining us on the way.

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