Between popular devotion and forgotten traditions, the mini-pilgrimages develop for great success

Of course, the behemoths are resisting! Saint-Jacques de Compostela and its 75 days of walking from Puy-en-Velay (Haute-Loire) always makes walkers dream, just like the 2,000 km of the Via Francigena connecting Canterbury (United Kingdom) to Rome (Italy). But the novelty is to dare small formats without complexes. Here, Mont-Saint-Michel (Manche), a high place of pilgrimage for more than a thousand years: it is no longer enough for him to be the target of groups of pilgrims succeeding by waves, over the months, of all the points of France.

For the first time this year, in May, the Protective Archangel of France saw him coming to him nearly 500 walkers who left Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine) to honor him for four days, against a backdrop of chartelet recitations, teaching and prayer stops in the sanctuaries marking the 70 km of the course. “The tourist dimension of Mont-Saint-Michel becoming overwhelming, we succeeded in making its spiritual dimension more perceptible”, underlines Brieuc Clerc, one of the laity initiators of the project. The insistence is placed on the spiritual fight that this archange victorious of the serpent embodies, and on the unity of the Church.

Lifelong saints

The initiative was warmly welcomed by all: rector of the sanctuary, lay people – believers or not – in charge of its promotion, Christian communities of the villages crossed. “As if something was realized with the deep vocation of this site,” rejoices the 30 -year -old.

Of national ambition, this pilgrimage nevertheless gives a new breath to local churches: “There were chapters (groups, note) of Saint-Malo, Rennes, Basse-Normandie… and the pilgrims collect themselves in the places of popular devotion of the coastal path. Once at the abbey, they receive a lead badge representing the boss of the angels, echoing a forgotten medieval tradition.

Embarking pilgrims for a day (or more) by putting the popular saints on the front of the stage is in tune with the times. In the diocese of Cambrai (North), Saint Rita, the mediator of desperate causes, was honored from March 8 to May 14, 2025 in twelve villages (churches, schools, nursing homes, families …) to celebrate the holy year decreed by Pope Francis and celebrated in the Catholic church throughout 2025, his statue painted for two months. With as a starting point and arrival the village of Curgies, which celebrates it every year through a novena.

Saint Anne, for her part, has been entitled since March 7 to a carriage for his tour of the 144 parishes of the diocese of Vannes, in order to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the appearances at the origin of the construction of the basilica of Sainte-Anne-d’Auray (Morbihan). It was the bishop, Mgr Raymond Centène, who took the initiative of this “troménie” – traditional Breton religious procession – four months. Prayers, songs, bombers and cornemuses that accompany this 1,800 km journey will not be silent until the evening of July 26, 2025, in the feast of Sainte Anne.

The distrust of the Church towards these manifestations of popular piety, suspected from the Council of Trent to flirt with superstition, no longer seems to be. The faith of yesterday’s generations, sometimes perceived as too brain, gives way to the desire to incarnate the French today, believers or not: walking, touching, seeing … while remaining vigilant, number of clerics lean on the side of the deceased Pope Francis, for which it was not necessary to “underestimate” the “evangelizing force” of popular piety, under penalty of “ignoring the work of the Holy Spirit. “(Evangelii Gaudium, 2013, §126).

Especially since the need for conviviality will grow in a fragmented society, where traditional meeting places vacillate from COVID-19 and the omnipresence of screens. The processions in honor of “lifelong saints” bring together those who believe in their intercession, those who are simply happy to reconnect with local traditions, but also a young generation of uninhibited Catholics, eager to assert their identity in the face of the visibility of Islam. They also testify to a quest for roots in a globalized world.

Kilometers of faith

Thus resurfaces very old pilgrimages fallen into oblivion. Both of Nantes, Anthony Grouard and his partner Anne-Laure Timmel, currently running towards Rome are also convinced of the benefits of local pilgrimages. In 2022, they thus imagined a route connecting Nantes to the Carolingian abbey of Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu (Loire-Atlantique), a point of arrival of a famous pilgrimage from the ninth century. Accommodation network, guide, historical work (In the footsteps of Saint Philbert, Ed. Siloé),, They did not spare their sentence.

Their approach is intended to be open to a large audience. “We want to encourage people to try the adventure with a local and accessible journey: two stages of 20 km,” says Anthony. Successful bet: around 350 pilgrims, sometimes very far from the church or any community, have started in three years. “People need breaks in their hectic lives, to reconnect to nature, to regain the taste for effort and sobriety, to experience sharing,” observes Anthony. All conditions that open to transcendence: “The paths are accelerators of faith”, assures this convert. The kilometers swallowed open to the experience of the sacred. And are rich in unexpected meetings: walkers, hosts, passers -by …

Pilgrim for a day or always

An analysis shared by Father Amaury Cintrat,, Who launches all -out pilgrimages in his parish of Yvelines to “fortify the spirits and hearts”, weld his parishioners, comfort the most isolated: in April 2025, 70 of them walked five hours at night to venerate the holy tunic of Argenteuil. “The Catholics of today,” rejoices the pastor, “do not get closer to a priori and let the heart of these initiatives are embarked. »»

The success of other proximity pilgrimages, offered to audiences sharing the same concerns – parents, widows and widowers, singles, etc. – Seems to prove him right. Pioneer in the launch of those for fathers and then mothers in the 1980s, the Cotignac sanctuary (Var) has since made many emulators. Like Caroline Fayol, 49, mother of four and college director, who duplicated her in 2023 with the support of Catholic family associations in the diocese of Limoges: “Hangled in the crazy rhythm of everyday life, we want to let go to entrust everything to Jesus. What allows this walk of a weekend between Notre-Dame-d’Arliquet and Notre-Dame-de-la-Paix, in Saint-Avent (Haute-Vienne). »Aspiration shared by a faithful older in the neighboring department of Creuse, Anne Santucci, who launched in 2021 a pilgrimage of grandmothers:“ I gain serenity each time. Transmitting faith to our grandchildren is not an easy task in the current context: we entrust this together in prayer. The route, a dozen kilometers, is done on a day around the Notre-Dame-du-Moulin spiritual center. Pilgrimages to a stone throwing from home and meeting all types of expectations: for the pilgrim of 2025, it has never been so easy to find a shoe at your foot.