November 05, 2025 – Pastor’s Note

Going to Rome

From December 01 until December 13, I will be on pilgrimage to Rome.

I visited Rome for the first time in my life two years ago and I did not expect to go back so soon. But our Jubilee focus at St. Joachim got me excited about the wider Jubilee celebration and I started to really want to get to Rome during this Jubilee. And when two of my favorite Catholic podcasters, J.D. Flynn and Ed Condon, decided they were going to host a pilgrim group, that sealed the deal for me. [You know they have to be an exceptional draw for me to miss both Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe here at home.]

Bringing Your Intentions

The heart of a diocesan priest can and should never be far from his parishioners, so the most important thing I want to do with this pilgrimage is to carry your intentions with me. Please use this form to let me know what to pray for. I will carry the printed list with me and pull it out during my prayer time at each of the pilgrimage sites.

Visting the Saints

One of the things I learned from my first time in Rome two years ago is how much I appreciate praying at the tombs of the saints. In St. Peter’s Basilica alone I can pray with St. Peter, St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory the Great, St. John Paul II, and I am sure of bunch of other saints I do not sufficiently appreciate. Kneeling before their bones, I have a strong sense that they get what I am praying for and that they are storming heaven for me.

Visting the Roman saints are a given. But this trip I am making the logistics of my travel far more nightmarish so that I can make a very brief stop-over in Geneva (really, Annecy) to visit the tombs of St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane de Chantal. St. Francis de Sales is an especially important saint to me because of his book Introduction to the Devout Life which I credit for saving my spiritual life in seminary. I am not sure I could spend an entire vacation in Geneva, so this seemed like as best a shot as any to visit one of my patrons.

I am also planning to visit, in Peterborough, England, the tomb of Katherine of Aragon. She is not yet even declared a Servant of God, so it is wrong to think of this as a pilgrimage to a saint. But I am very curious about her life and I think she may have displayed some of the heroic virtues that are required for canonization. Someone in that position is complicated for us believers because we are not supposed to venerate someone until the Church makes it “safe” through an investigation into their virtue, and yet the Church is not going to investigate someone until there is sufficient devotional regard by the people. So, because the best flights from Seattle to Europe go through London and that gets me close enough, I am going to contribute my own devotional regard for this paragon of a Catholic queen.

Trying Out a Pilgrim Group

Over the years, different parishioners have asked me if I would ever host a parish pilgrimage to Rome or the Holy Land, and I have always steadfastly said “no”. The cheeky reason I give is that I would prefer not to hate my parishioners. But the more straightforward reason is not far off.

When I was in seminary, I was privileged to go with my classmates on pilgrimage to Ars and to the Holy Land. And as much as I loved the guys I went to seminary with, I hated being on a tour group with them. There was always one or two who were not listening to the instructions, showing up to the bus late, or generally not going along with the program. And I, being a Type A, controlling, rule-follower COULD NOT STAND IT. So ever since then, I have always travelled alone or with a very small group (like my family), because the chaos of groups drives me mad.

Additionally, when I began as Pastor of Assumption, there was a pilgrimage to Italy scheduled that ended up being cancelled because of COVID. Now, COVID was a dark time, and I encourage general amnesty for all things done or said by anyone in 2020 and 2021. But let me tell you, things got ugly and parishioners started blaming the parish or expecting the parish to intervene in all the refund disputes. I really did not want to see the parish take responsibility for a pilgrimage ever again.

Well, I am wondering if it is time for me to overcome my biases. This is the first hosted pilgrimage I have been on since 2016. We’ll see how it goes.

(If you really want a tour group to Rome sooner rather than later, Bishop Schuster is hosting a group that you are welcome and encouraged to sign up for: https://www.gocatholictravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Brown-Schuster-2026-Italy-Brochure.pdf)