Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham, Houston | Kate Quinones
CV NEWS FEED // The Catholic Church in England and Wales has launched a digital resource that provides walking routes to key pilgrimage sites across its dioceses.
Created by former CEO of Caritas Social Action Network, Philip McCarthy, Pilgrim Ways is an online platform with a database of pilgrimage routes which start from a cathedral and end at a shrine in each diocese of England and Wales.
According to an article published by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, McCarthy “is a man on a mission” to revitalise “the culture of walking pilgrimage that has been somewhat lost in England and Wales.”
“My idea is to create a ‘pilgrim way’ in each Catholic diocese from the cathedral of that diocese to one or more shrines within the same diocese,” said McCarthy. “So I’ve created a website which has all the routes on, and gradually I’m walking them and adding the directions so people can follow them easily.”
McCarthy continued:
I hope these are routes, not just for Catholics to deepen their faith, but for everyone to experience pilgrimage within a Catholic setting. Really the title for the project, which is ‘Hearts in Search of God’, comes from a quotation from Pope Francis where he reminds us that pilgrims, whether old or young, sick or in good health, or just casual tourists, in all of us beats a heart in search of God – whether we’re aware of the spiritual journey we’re on or not. I think that’s a marvellous image.
The routes are all downloadable from the website to ensure unlimited access to pilgrimages throughout their journey.
“Pilgrim Passports” will also be made available for pilgrims to stamp along the way, similar to the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage that runs across Spain, France, and Portugal.
