World News Chartres Pilgrimage: Paul Waddington reports from France

Catholics around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the great pilgrimage that takes place in France each year over the Pentecost weekend. Known as the Pèlerinage de Chrétienté, it was founded in 1983 and involves the arduous walk from Paris to the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres, a distance of around 60 miles. Although the majority of the pilgrims are French, many other nationalities are represented, with participants coming from as far as Australia and New Zealand.

This year, in order to comply with the requirements of the local police, the organisers had to limit the number of pilgrims to 19,000. The clamour for places was so great that the computer systems handling the bookings crashed soon after they opened, and when they were eventually made to work, the event was sold out in days. Although the pilgrimage is open to all ages, its appeal is mostly to the young, with the average age of participants this year being 20.

In recent years, the Chartres Pilgrimage has started with Mass at the Eglise Saint-Sulpice in Paris, and ended with Mass at Chartres Cathedral. Naturally, at these venues, only a small proportion of the pilgrims are able to hear the Mass inside these buildings, the vast majority having to be content with following it on screens erected outside. On Whit Sunday, Mass is offered in the open near the campsite. This year, the Whit Sunday Mass was offered by Bishop Athanasius Schneider before a congregation of about 20,000.

All Masses are offered according to the traditional rite, and conducted with great reverence and solemnity. This year, more than 200 priests took part in the pilgrimage, and were available to hear confessions, which mostly took place on the move as the pilgrims walked.

Chartres has been a place of pilgrimage since medieval times, gaining great popularity in the twelfth century, when the present building was erected. Pilgrims flocked to Chartres to see the Sancta Camisa. This holy relic is believed to be the veil or shawl used by Our Lady to wrap the infant Jesus.

The story behind this relic dates back to the fifth century when it was sealed in a reliquary, and transferred from Jerusalem to Constantinople, where it was kept in a basilica dedicated to the Mother of God. According to some reports, the reliquary was brought to Chartres in 876 by King Charles the Bald, the grandson of Charlemagne, where it remained unopened until 1712. In that year, the reliquary was opened revealing two pieces of cloth, one of silk and the other of linen embroidered with silk.

Following the French Revolution, Chartres declined as a place of pilgrimage, but was revived in a modest way in the early years of the twentieth century. In 1984, the strongly traditionist movement, Chrétienté Solidarité, established a walking pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres, which grew to become the Chartres Pilgrimage we now know.

With the number of pilgrims wishing to take part expected to continue to rise, the organisers are planning for a much larger pilgrimage next year. This will be achieved by dividing it into two columns that will take separate routes. That way, it should be possible to accept as many as 30,000 pilgrims.

Also from France, we have news of a boom in adult baptisms. According to figures published by the French Bishops’ Conference, 10,384 adults were baptised into the Catholic Church at Easter, 46 percent more than the previous year. As the chart shows, adult baptisms have been steadily increasing in France since the Covid pandemic, with the figure for 2025 standing at almost two and a half times the preCovid average.

Additionally, 7,400 young people, aged between 11 and 17 were baptised in France at Easter.

Other reports paint a similar picture in the USA, Canada, Australia, Austria and Belgium. It seems that interest in the Chartres Pilgrimage is, at least to some degree, a reflection of an increase in Catholicism among young people.