Catholics pilgrimage making its way across Wisconsin

Thousands of Catholics taking part in a pilgrimage are making their way across southeast Wisconsin this week. The two-month-long National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is part of a broader movement to revive the Catholic church in the United States.   

There are four pilgrimage routes across the county. All told, 100,000 pilgrims will travel a total of 6,500 miles before convening in Indianapolis for a five-day conference.

The route passing through the area started in Minnesota.

The pilgrimage reached Wisconsin on June 7, starting in La Crosse. It moved through Wausau, Green Bay and Fond du Lac. It reached southeast Wisconsin on June 18 and will stay through June 26 before continuing on to Illinois. There are more than 50 stops planned in the Milwaukee area.

Eight pilgrims are walking the entire route. Kai Weiss is one of them. He applied to be a perpetual pilgrim because he wanted to deepen his faith. He also saw a need for unity.

“I’m also worried about certain things in this country — how polarized and divided it is. And so it is my hope that by having Jesus being carried throughout the country in the form of a cross… this country can also find some kind of healing,” Weiss said.

The days consist of multiple religious services, processionals and prayer opportunities. On June 21, a 4-mile procession stopped along the Waukesha Christmas Parade route. In 2021, a man drove an SUV through the parade, killing six people and injuring dozens of others.

Margaret Rhody, associate director for parish renewal with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, said when the procession reached the memorial for victims of the tragedy, there was a prayerful pause.

“[It was] a time of just really honoring and praying for healing from that wound that the whole community experienced,” Rhody said.

The pilgrimage is about faith and prayer. Tim Glemkowski, CEO of the National Eucharistic Congress, said God is concerned about the challenges facing the world. Glemkowski mentioned mental health, especially among young people, as one example.

“(There is) a lot of different brokenness and hurt and wounds and scandals even, that we can see. And this is a chance for us as a Catholic church across the country, to come back to the heart of it all, and to find the healing there that’s present for us,” Glemkowski said.

Revitalizing the Catholic Church in the US

The pilgrimage is a part of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops three-year National Eucharistic Revival. The movement was born of the concern that many Catholics don’t believe or misunderstand the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ present at the altar in the form of bread and wine, a key part of Catholic doctrine.

“The Eucharist is not just one idea or reality among many, but we call it the source and summit, the place the church comes from,” Glemkowski said.

Planning for the revival, including the pilgrimage, began in 2019. There were deliberations in 2021 among U.S. bishops on whether to refuse communion to politicians who support abortion rights, according to NPR.  

“We as a church have been tasked with inviting people to that relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist, that can provide that peace that surpasses all understanding,” Glemkowski said.

The route through Wisconsin is one of four across the country. The four routes make a cross, intersecting in Indianapolis for the 10^th National Eucharistic Congress, the first one in 83 years.  

“We have had a heart for bringing these national gathering conferences back as a sort of central rallying point for Catholics across the country to say, ‘What better thing to gather around than the source and summit of our faith?’” Glemkowski said.