As dusk fell on the mountains surrounding the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg Oct. 9, a wise old woman standing outside of the shrine’s cemetery warned those who passed to “listen closely.”
“Don’t waste the time of the dead or the ones who still live!” she told each of the 11 groups of 24 people as they passed. “The dead would like to have some words with you tonight.”
Ten “souls,” including saints, martyrs and souls in heaven and purgatory, shared their stories of struggles and joys during the shrine’s Back from the Dead cemetery walk. Even the devil appeared.
“It is meant to be a very uplifting thing,” Rob Judge, executive director of the shrine, said of the tours. “You learn about saints and reflect on what really is important in life.”
Father Brian Nolan, pastor of St. Ignatius in Ijamsville, was inspired many years ago to create the drama. While teaching at what is now McDaniel College in Westminster, he wanted an alternative to lecturing about saints, martyrs, angels, the devil and purgatory. He also was deeply troubled when he and a parish youth group visited a haunted hayride and barn and were asked to “sign their souls away to the devil.”
“Absolutely not. You don’t play around with this stuff,” Father Nolan told everyone at the time. “We’ve got to do things differently.”
So while the walks take place in a graveyard, they are not meant to be “spooky scary,” Father Nolan said. Rather, it is an “engaging experience of faith in the cemetery,” he said.
“It is like a prayer, a meditation, teaching faith in a cemetery in a loving way,” Father Nolan said.
He began writing scripts and in 2003, while he was the campus minister at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, five people took his first cemetery walk at the St. Anthony’s Shrine Cemetery in Emmitsburg. Today, it is held multiple weekends in October at the shrine with more than 3,000 people attending each year. An indoor production, added during the pandemic, remains popular with those who have trouble walking.
“It’s equally beautiful because you’re in this holy space and it’s dark and a saint comes out,” Judge said, referring to the indoor production.
Father Nolan still is involved with the production, helping edit and oversee new scripts. He has written more than 30 of them.
“You get to hear stories of people you might not otherwise hear of and having this historical setting is phenomenal,” said Vincent Smith, a seminarian for the Diocese of Colorado Springs who is in his fourth year of theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg.
Smith portrayed Blessed Stanley Rother, a martyr, who attended Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and was killed while working at a mission church in Guatemala in 1981.
“I think that affects how you present it when the audience is three feet in front of you,” Smith said, of the ability to walk amongst the participants. “To be able to have that engagement with them, I think, makes it very real for the actor but also hopefully makes this story very real for the people who are on the tour.”
Liz Mooney, a volunteer actor performing as St. Joan of Arc, called the experience “eye-opening” for the audience. Mooney progressed from attendee to guide to actor over several years.
“Some of the stuff the saints say really sticks out to people and is really relatable. Everybody who goes through … takes away something from it, whether it’s something that the saint said, or what they thought about it or a question.”
The production involves between 50 and 60 volunteers and around 10 staff members, Judge said. Most of the costs are covered by donors, he said, with ticket prices covering the rest.
The walks typically sell out. Church youth groups are popular participants, Judge said, as are families.
“This is probably our fifth time and it’s always outstanding. We look forward to this every year,” said Lori Dagostino, who was visiting from Pennsylvania with her husband, Albert. “We make it a priority to come here.”
“The sacrament of confession is a perfect ending,” Albert Dagostino added. “That’s where I’m headed.”
The addition of confessions started a few years ago, Judge said.
“We have such good conversations in the car on the ride home, and we talk about it quite a bit,” Michael Shields, who was with his wife and six children, said after a tour Oct. 9, noting that the family, which travels from Virginia, has been regular attendees for many years.
Productions of Back from the Dead cemetery walk have spread around the country as seminarians familiar with it have taken the idea with them. Father Nolan knows of productions in Kansas, Nebraska and North Carolina.
“It took seven years to really develop and flourish,” Father Nolan said. “It continues to touch hearts, minds and souls.”
Ticket information
While there are limited walk-up tickets available each night, all presale tickets for the Back from the Dead cemetery walks are sold out for the 2026 year.
Tickets are still available for the indoor production Nov. 1, 6 p.m., in the National St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine’s basilica.
Tickets are $16.
For more information, visit setonshrine.org/back-from-the-dead
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