ROME (Vatican News) — Chesterton Academy students from across the U.S. kicked off a 10-day pilgrimage to Italy with Pope Leo XIV’s general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
About 240 students from the Chesterton Schools Network, which includes over 70 classical, Catholic high schools in the U.S. and abroad, are taking part in the trip, visiting churches and pilgrimage sites in Rome, Florence and Assisi.
Nora Kennedy, a student from the Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family in Illinois, described being in Rome as “the best experience” of her life.
The Chesterton Rome Pilgrimage takes place each year and brings high school upperclassmen from the network’s classical schools across the United States to the Eternal City.
For Kennedy, the pope’s Wednesday general audience was a particularly special moment.
“Seeing (the pope) go by was so cool (and) hearing him address us in English — this I just can’t even put into words yet how impactful this has all been,” she said.
This feeling is one that her classmate, Konstantinos Karnezis, shared. “Being here has honestly been such a blessing. It’s something that I’ve honestly looked forward to ever since my freshman year.”
Father Joseph Johnson, the school network’s chaplain, said the group was able “to both rejoice in the Holy Father coming from our own land, but also rejoice with all the Catholics of the world here” in St. Peter’s Square in “Bernini’s great colonnade, which welcomes pilgrims from all of the world that we’re all brothers and sisters together, one family in faith.”
Joe Long, president and CEO of ProRome Tours based in Front Royal, Virginia, has planned annual pilgrimages to Italy for the Chesterton schools since 2019.
“Every Catholic should have the opportunity to walk where saints have walked, to pray where martyrs died, and to touch the stones that witnessed miracles,” Long said.
The Chesterton Schools Network is a Catholic nonprofit apostolate dedicated to inspiring and supporting Catholic high schools around the United States and equipping parents to be the principal educators of their children.
G.K. Chesterton, the English author, philosopher and apologist, became the inspiration for this network. Co-founders Tom Bengtson and Dale Ahlquist looked to the man known as the “apostle of common sense” to create a classical, integrated high school education that is affordable to all.
Kennedy describes her experience studying at a Chesterton Academy as life-changing.
“My favorite thing about Chesterton is that faith is at the center of everything that we do — from daily Mass, confession, adoration, but then also in my friendships and the way that Christ is at the center of all of those,” she said.
The school is centered on three types of formation — intellectual, character and spiritual. Students study great works by foundational authors, such as Homer, Plato, Dante, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi and, of course, G.K. Chesterton.
“I love the classical curriculum and how it teaches me how to think and how to articulate my thoughts,” Kennedy said, noting that she believes this will serve her in whatever settings throughout her life.
Faith plays a central role in the overall growth of the students at the Chesterton schools.
“All my classmates are oriented towards Christ and bringing me closer to him, and I do the same,” Kennedy said. This shared focus on faith and prayer, she added, deepened their friendships.
“Just like Chesterton in his own day was a sign of contradiction to those around him, so we today find ourselves standing in opposition to the secularism and those other voices in our world that don’t appreciate the truth of the Gospel,” Father Johnson said.
“There are too many angry voices in the world,” the chaplain added, “We want to follow Chesterton’s example of giving a witness with joy, hope, and love.”
Authors Kielce Gussie and Fabrizio Peloni write for Vatican News, the official multimedia news portal of the Holy See. This story was first published by Vatican News and is distributed in partnership with OSV News. Courtney Mares, Vatican editor for OSV News, contributed to this report.
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