The annual Chrétienté pilgrimage, which links Paris to Chartres cathedral, brings together pilgrims attached to the traditional liturgy from all over the world. It celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2022. Despite the upheavals in the traditional Catholic community and the increasing restrictions imposed on the faithful since the publication of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes in July 2021, its attendance has set new records this year.
Jean de Tauriers, president of the Notre-Dame de Chrétienté association, explains that for the past seven years, attendance at the pilgrimage has grown by about 10% per year. For 2023, the increase is 33%: 16,000 walkers will take to the roads of Ile-de-France, compared to 12,000 last year. There has also been a steady increase in the number of people who form the “Guardian Angels Chapter,” i.e., those who cannot physically walk the hundred or so kilometres that separate the church of Saint-Sulpice—the starting point of the pilgrimage in the centre of Paris since the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris—from the square in front of the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres, but who wish to join in with the journey by praying. To this core group are added all those who, not yet counted, will join the procession along the way to share only a section of the route.
On Friday, May 19th, for the first time in the history of the pilgrimage, organisers had to close registration—to guarantee logistical control, secure the homogeneity of the procession, and ensure the safety of the pilgrims.
Three hundred seminarians and priests are accompanying the pilgrims, belonging to 21 different nationalities—mainly French people, but also Europeans, and a few courageous travellers from America, Africa, and Asia. For Odile Téqui, in charge of communication for the pilgrimage, this is a “totally historic” level of participation for this edition, organised on the theme of “The Eucharist, salvation of souls.” The average age of the pilgrims is extremely telling: 20.5 years old, proving the dynamism of the movement and its influence among Catholic youth.
Many negative signals have been sent by the Vatican against the community of the faithful attached to the traditional rite known as “of Saint Pius V” for the past two years. Since the publication of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes in July 2021, which put an end to the provisions of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, granted by Benedict XVI to give priests the freedom to use the ancient liturgical books, they have been in the eye of the storm. Many places where the Tridentine Mass was celebrated have closed: in Paris—the starting point of the Chartres pilgrimage—half of the places where the Latin Mass was celebrated have been removed.
According to the testimonies, not all the participants in the pilgrimage of Christianity attend the Tridentine Mass regularly. But all are attracted by the strength of the prayer that emerges, the beauty of the liturgy, and the dynamism of the walkers. Cardinal Pie, bishop of Poitiers but originally from Chartres, is said to have predicted the irresistible attraction of the noble cathedral in 1855: “Chartres will become, more than ever, the centre of devotion to Mary in the West. People will flock to it, as in the past, from all parts of the world!”
At the same time, the “Pilgrimage of Tradition,” organised by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X, brings together about 4,000 pilgrims in the opposite direction—from Chartres to Paris.
