Pilgrimages
We celebrated the 2025 Jubilee as Pilgrims of Hope!
Lourdes Pilgrimage – 2026 News
The Annual Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes takes place from Friday 3 to Thursday 9 July 2026.
Full information about the Pilgrimage can be found by following this link: https://www.dioceseofleeds.org.uk/lourdes-pilgrimage/
Joint Walsingham Pilgrimage with Middlesbrough Diocese
The 2026 Joint Leeds and Middlesbrough Diocesan Pilgrimage to Walsingham will take place on Saturday 26 September, commencing with the Angelus at 12.00 noon followed by Mass at the National Shrine.
Walsingham - a brief history
Walsingham, in north Norfolk, has been a place of pilgrimage since medieval times, when for most people travel to Rome or Compostella was virtually impossible. The original shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, founded in 1061, was destroyed at the Reformation.
Many barren years passed until the Slipper Chapel, a 14th century wayside pilgrim chapel, was restored, and pilgrimage to Walsingham began once more. In 1934, the English bishops named the Slipper Chapel the Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady.
Walsingham - its spirituality
The idea of going on pilgrimage is deeply embedded in the Christian faith, and, earlier still, in the Jewish tradition. Every year Mary and Joseph joined the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, taking Jesus with them. Huge numbers today similarly make a pilgrimage to many Holy Places around the world, hundreds of thousands of them to Walsingham.
Almost everyone speaks of the peace they find in Walsingham, an atmosphere which some detect even on the approaching lanes. There are some who find their way to Walsingham to give thanks for some blessing in their lives. Others come to make a new start or find some way through confusion in their lives. There may be a desire to seek forgiveness in confession and reconciliation, or return to the Church. The sacrament of the sick is frequently received here, and people come to find healing, strength and God’s grace through the prayers of Our Lady.
The spirituality behind everything in Walsingham is to be found in the words of Our Lady when she was asked to become the mother of the Lord. Instead of questioning she simply responded, ‘Let it be done to me according to your word’ (Luke 1: 26). She lovingly sought and chose to do the will of God.
Whatever motivates a person to come to Walsingham, there is awakened in the soul open to God a desire to try and do his will. Discovering the will of God, let alone doing it, is often far from easy. On numerous occasions in the Gospel Mary ‘pondered these things in her heart’. Walsingham is gentle, offering space and time to ponder and pray, and work things out. It was in this spirit that Richeldis responded to the request made of her to build in Walsingham a replica of the home in Nazareth where Mary had made her initial response to God. Walsingham is the home of Mary where, like a mother, she is able to influence, guide, teach and love us if we let her, just as she did her Son. Most importantly, she asks us to say with her and through her, ‘Let it be done to me according to your word’.
Leeds Branch Contacts: Pilgrimage Director and Chaplain: Rev Fr Benjamin Griffiths - benjamin.griffiths@dioceseofleeds.org.uk
Catholics who are able are encouraged to walk some or all of the way to visit Shrines and Holy Places on foot ... our Diocesan Walking Pilgrimages have a Laudato Si' focus and are also the inspiration for a unique project called 'Hearts in Search of God', initiated by author and pilgrim Dr Philip McCarthy ...
St Wilfrid's Way
The 11th Annual St Wilfrid's Way Diocesan Pilgrimage will take place on Friday 9 and Saturday 10 October 2026. Please sign up by contacting communications@dioceseofleeds.org.uk
As a follow-up to his St Patrick’s, Huddersfield to Leeds Cathedral ‘Camino’ instituted in the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Stephen Habron, a parishioner at Holy Redeemer Parish, Huddersfield, compiled a booklet on a new ‘Camino’ route: from Leeds Cathedral to Ripon via Knaresborough, Bishop Thornton and Fountains Abbey.
In 2016 this became a new official diocesan pilgrimage, St Wilfrid’s Way, which takes place each October, over two days around the time of St Wilfrid’s Feast Day (12 October). Anyone may walk either all or ANY part of the Camino (staying overnight en route OR going home). All those volunteering to provide hospitality, sustenance or transport for the walkers are pilgrims too –and are especially welcome!
The walk is in stages; almost all on country tracks and paths, but still within a short distance of the A61 and ‘bus and train services. We pass through the natural environment on the way to visit some of the most historic sacred sites in the Diocese for Mass, the Rosary and other devotions, just a few of which include: the mediaeval wayside shrine of Our Lady of the Crag in Knaresborough; our Parish of St Joseph’s, Bishop Thornton where the upper room of the Presbytery is the oldest Mass House in the Diocese; Markenfield Hall with its Recusant Catholic links; the National Trust and World Heritage Site of Fountains Abbey and finally Ripon, which was home to the Shrine of St Wilfrid in Ripon Cathedral and is where the Pilgrimage ends with Mass at the Parish Church of St Wilfrid, designed by Joseph Hansom and Edward Pugin and one of the architectural treasures of our Diocese.
To give an idea of the route, which varies very little each year, the 2025 St Wilfrid’s Way Route Booklet may be viewed and downloaded here.
If you are interested in walking St Wilfrid’s Way in 2026 please contact Rowan Morton-Gledhill via pilgrimage-walks@dioceseofleeds.org.uk
The entire route (as walked in October 2018) is on WikiLoc: https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/st-wilfrids-way-2018-29700706
Annual Walking Pilgrimage for Vocations 'In Father Brown's Footsteps'
The 4th annual pilgrimage walk 'In Fr Brown's Footsteps' will take place on Saturday 20 March 2027. As with our other pilgrimages on foot, this is a fully risk-assessed walk and requires pilgrims to sign up by contacting pilgrimage-walks@dioceseofleeds.org.uk
The inaugural walking of our newest pilgrimage took place in March 2024: the 120th anniversary of the first meeting between GK Chesterton (1874-1936) and the Diocese of Leeds priest who would become his inspiration for ‘Father Brown’, Fr John O’Connor (1870-1952). This Pilgrimage for the intention of Vocations usually begins with Mass at the St Anne's Catholic Church (where Fr O'Connor was Curate at the time). Pilgrims then follow the route taken by Chesterton and Fr O'Connor over Ilkley Moor. After a pause to eat our packed lunches at Ilkley's Sacred Heart Catholic Church, this Lenten pilgrimage ends with Stations of the Cross at the Myddelton Calvary. Photographs and a full report of the first ever 2024 pilgrimage walk 'in Fr Brown's Footsteps' may be viewed on our archived 'Pilgrims of Hope' Jubilee 2025 website.
Read about the 2026 Pilgrimage on our News pages!
Laudato Si' Mini-Pilgrimages
During the 2026 Year of St Francis, we will once more try to organise be at least one Laudato Si' Mini-Pilgrimage walk or event in each of our 'Four Seasons of Creation'!
Since 2018 our Laudato Si' Mini Pilgrimages have been celebrations of God's Creation and of our care for the earth, Our Common Home. They began as short, seasonal, guided walks through Ilkley’s Myddelton Grange estate woodlands to the Calvary led by Estate Manager Paul Elgar who initiated and implemented diocesan conservation projects on the Myddelton site. It is thanks to parishioners at Sacred Heart, Ilkley who came on that first ‘pilgrimage recce’ that proposals for wheelchair-accessible pilgrimages to the Calvary are in progress, as well as Laudato Si' Pilgrimages to other environmentally-important sacred sites within our Diocese, including the Chapel of Our Lady of the Crag and St Robert's Cave on the banks of the River Nidd at Knaresborough.
Feel free to get in touch via communications@dioceseofleeds.org.uk with suggestions for Laudato Si' Pilgrimages in YOUR parish; your ideas will be warmly received!
These short pilgrimage routes are especially suitable for school groups and the Diocese of Leeds Faith in Action Awards.
We remember in our prayers the late Paul Elgar, Myddelton Farm Estate and Forestry Manager, whose conservation knowledge and expertise was so much a part of these mini-pilgrimages: may he Rest in Peace.
