So, it finally happened. On this year’s Remnant pilgrimage to Chartres, I was pleased to welcome two American pilgrims – a brother and sister – whose mother and father met each other on a Remnant pilgrimage 25 years ago. As happy as I was to make the acquaintance of the O’Flaherty siblings, I found it startling to recall that both of their parents were younger than I was twenty-five years ago when I’d first welcomed them into The Remnant chapter.
The takeaway? Time is moving on, and we’re not getting any younger.
Still, for me it was such a source of joy to see yet another manifestation of the powerful role the Chartres Pilgrimage has played in the lives of so many. The O’Flaherty siblings – Irene and Pearce – are a credit to their parents and an obvious up-and-coming asset to the Catholic restoration movement overall, as were the Poe siblings, Jane Dvorak, Edward Brannon, Luke Stager and the other young pilgrims whose parents had walked the Pilgrimage with me years ago and who are today taking up the baton in this race to restore all things in Christ.
It was a grand and glorious Pilgrimage to Chartres, dedicated as it was to the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Bittersweet, as well, since everywhere I looked after all these years I saw another ghost from the past. Michael Davies and I had walked to Chartres many times, God rest his soul. Arnaud de Lassus, Anthony Fraser, Robert Hurt – so many friends who were with us on the Road to Chartres but only in spirit.
So have hope, Remnant family. This war is not over, of course, but the Children of Light are gathering. They know their enemy is also the enemy of God and of their fathers. They are awake and ready to fight. How do I know? Because I just walked to Chartres with them.
But their children were there. I was thrilled to meet the son of the late, great French Traditionalist pioneer, Arnaud de Lassus, just outside of the Cathedral on Pentecost Monday. My friend and mentor, Arnaud de Lassus, was one of the original pilgrims who had revived the Pilgrimage some forty-five years ago. A few after that, he helped me start the first U.S. Chapter in the history of the Pilgrimage. His son introduced himself to me with a smile on his face, knowing how much his father had meant to me. And all I could think to tell him was how much I loved his father. He understood what I was trying to say: “Yes, me too. I still love him.” Tears in my eyes? Why? I suppose it is because we both share memories of the giants on whose shoulders we now stand. In death their movement and their spirit live on, especially on the Road to Chartres.
So, yes getting older but also filled with hope for the future. Over the course of the last few years, for example, my righthand “man” in organizing the Remnant pilgrimages has been my eldest daughter, Cecelia (pictured with me, below), whose dedication to the Catholic cause her grandfather had championed long before she was born makes me a proud father indeed.
All of this was a welcome reminder that over the years many young people have been inspired by Chartres just as I was three decades ago. And if can personally attest to this fact, based on my own experience with just one chapter on the Pilgrimage – the U.S. Chapter of Our Lady of Guadalupe – it isn’t difficult to imagine how many hundreds of thousands of lives have been changed as a result of this magnificent Catholic event overall.
And I hasten to remind Remnant readers that this is a project we all worked on together over the years. With the financial help of Remnant readers, hundreds of young American Catholics have had the opportunity to live and breathe Christendom in microcosm and to experience firsthand what it is that we are fighting to restore. Today these young clans are uniting and building up the future of Christendom. In other words, and by every measurable indicator, the Chartres Pilgrimage has been a towering success story in the history of Catholic counterrevolution and restoration movement.
And so, another Pilgrimage to Chartres has come and gone, reminding us of the progress that is being made in this great march of Catholic survival and restoration. There is no stopping it now. And if it is to be judged by its fruits, then we can say that life is being breathed into this event by God Himself.
This year, 20,000 young people walked the 70-mile route from Paris to Chartres, with another 10,000 joining them on Pentecost Monday in the City of Chartres. That means that 30,000 Traditional Catholics were on hand for the Traditional Latin Mass inside the great gothic Cathedral Notre Dame de Chartres. Several bishops were there (including His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider), hundreds of priests, too many monks and religious sisters to count, and members of the media reported to the world that the Traditional Catholic frontline is teeming with young soldiers of Jesus Christ who are on fire for the Faith of their fathers.
And as the Chartres Pilgrimage continues to grow every year, I was pleased to note that its spirit hasn’t changed at all. From 1991 when I first walked to Chartres until today when I walked it for the 32nd time (Covid having served up the only interruption), I can honestly say that apart from the presence of many more pilgrims than ever before, nothing has changed. The same Catholic joy. The same happy Catholic spirit of hope for the future. The same spirit of charity. The same lack of hubris. The same pilgrim path, the same Latin Mass, the same love story for the Catholic Faith. It was all there. Nothing has changed.
There were many more foreign chapters this year, too, with several additional American chapters where there had been only one for so many years – all of which offered much promise for the future. And I suppose that promise for the future is why certain Modernist forces in the Church feel so threatened by the Chartres Pilgrimage.
Oh, yes, they tried to stop the Pilgrimage this year. They even banned Latin Masses on both ends of the Pilgrimage – in Paris and in Chartres, leaving the hundreds of young priests scrambling to find altars for their private Masses. It was a scandal. But the Pilgrimage to Chartres has taken on a life of its own. It has become a force multiplier, too powerful to be shut down. And so, the Latin Mass on Saturday in Paris saw a packed-out Saint Sulpice with thousands of pilgrims spilling out into the street at the start line of the Pilgrimage.
The Pilgrimage kicks off with the TLM inside (and spilling outside) of Saint-Sulpice, the second-largest church in Paris.
On Pentecost Sunday, Bishop Athanasius Schneider offered the Latin Mass in an outdoor “cathedral” that saw a gathering of pilgrims stretching out over the green fields of France as far as the eye could see. Imagine, that gathering of pilgrims, the average age just twenty years old – sitting quietly in the grass, listening to Bishop Schneider’s voice amplified over the fields, proclaiming the social Kingship of Jesus Christ to the entire world:
“What does the social Kingship of Christ mean to us today. It means that Christ is the King of my life. It means that I will never be ashamed to confess Christ and the truths of the Catholic Faith. It means observing God’s Commandments, with the help of His grace. It means purity of soul, and chastity of the body, mutual forgiveness, and tireless charity towards our neighbor. Christ is the King of our lives, our families, and our countries.”
And so, another Pilgrimage to Chartres has come and gone, reminding us of the progress that is being made in this great march of Catholic survival and restoration. There is no stopping it now. And if it is to be judged by its fruits, then we can say that life is being breathed into this event by God Himself.
Bishop Schneider celebrates the TLM for 20,000 pilgrims in the fields of France on Pentecost Sunday
So have hope, Remnant family. This war is not over, of course, but the Children of Light are gathering. They know their enemy is also the enemy of God and of their fathers. They are awake and ready to fight. How do I know? Because I just walked to Chartres with them. I knelt with them in front of the Blessed Sacrament in an outdoor chapel in the middle of the night. I prayed a thousand Aves with them on the road to Chartres, and I heard the Latin Mass together with thirty thousand of them. And do you know what? The ageing Modernists inside the Church have every reason to be concerned. They are angry old men trying to stand up against an army of young warriors, filled with joy and proudly proclaiming the Kingship of Christ. Good luck to them! Tradition is the future. Praise God and long live Christ the King.
Special Thanks
I want to thank my friend, Father Gregory Pendergraft, who has walked the road to Chartres with me for many years and who, by all accounts, is the best chaplain a pilgrim to Chartres could ever ask for. Thanks for everything, Father, and Deo volente, we’ll see you next year on the road to Chartres.
I also want to thank all the friends who walked with me under the banner of Our Lady of the Guadalupe. For me it was a pleasure and indeed an honor to be in the trenches with you, and I hope to see you again sometime on the Road to Chartres.
And finally, our French allies at Notre Dame de Chretiente – thank you for welcoming the Yanks one more time. I thank God for your leadership, and I pray that heaven will continue to bless your magnificent efforts to restore all things in Christ. Que Dieu vous bénisse, gardez la foi ancienne et nous vous reverrons l’année prochaine.
