About Modern Catholic Pilgrim
We work to prepare pilgrims, get them to holy sites in the United States, and expand a hospitality network to care for those pilgrims as they journey.
Modern Catholic Pilgrim aims to deepen faith and build community across the United States through walked pilgrimage in the Catholic tradition.
We envision our society transformed by geographic pilgrimage and biblical hospitality into a society more closely mirroring the Kingdom of God.
OUR MISSION
“For the Church, pilgrimages, in all their multiple aspects, have always been a gift of grace."
—Pope St. John Paul II
Walked Pilgrimage
Thousands of people travel across the world for large-scale pilgrimages each year, most popularly to the Camino de Santiago. Yet, there are holy sites all over the world, many in our own backyards.
Modern Catholic Pilgrim brings the pilgrimage back to the basics: setting a (holy) destination and bringing prayerful intentions along the journey there. In this way, we reframe the idea of pilgrimage as something only available in a far-off land and create opportunities for everyone to experience the fruits of deepening faith and building community through pilgrimage.
OUR FOCUSES
Biblical Hospitality
Jesus told the disciples, “Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there” (Luke 9:3-4). For our multi-day pilgrimages, we strive to incorporate this biblical hospitality: our pilgrims do not carry tents and sleeping bags nor rely on a support vehicle to do so, but instead trust in the generosity of hosts coordinated by MCP to receive them along the journey. In this way, hosts and pilgrims alike grow from the opportunity to encounter the stranger and grow in community and relationship.
Our Team
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Will Peterson, Founder & President
will@moderncatholicpilgrim.com
Will experienced firsthand radical Catholic hospitality on trips to Iowa and North Dakota during college during which he recognized that American Catholicism contains a multitude of people willing to open their doors to travelers. A pilgrimage to Rome for Pope Francis’s first Easter while an undergraduate stirred the first thoughts of a pilgrimage ministry as he felt the immense power of a physical journey of faith shared with others. After years as a Catholic school teacher in TN, KY, and CA, he now works full time with MCP. He has been a speaker at Catholic and pilgrimage-related conferences; a writer for academic, diocesan, and lay publications; and a guest of various Catholic media outlets.
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Samantha Vargo, Director of Pilgrimage Programming
After over a decade working in professional, educational, and community theater settings, Sam brings her program management and leadership skills to Modern Catholic Pilgrim. Her interest in the fruits of walking long distances in community was first piqued by the project Walk Around Philadelphia, something of a secular pilgrimage exploring the edge of that city by charting a pedestrian course along its perimeter. Through her theater work and her MA in Catholic Studies (UST 2022), she has long been interested in the unity of the body, mind, and soul, particularly the importance of integrating the interior experience with exterior movement – themes central to the experience of prayer through pilgrimage.
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Maria Benes, National Eucharistic Pilgrimage Project Lead
Maria also serves as the co-director of the Before Gethsemane Initiative, a Catholic nonprofit for racial reconciliation. She holds a Ph.D. in political science with a specialization in human rights from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and a M.A. in international affairs with a concentration in conflict resolution from The George Washington University. Maria has taught college classes in human rights, international relations, and public policy. She has a heart for advocating for the inherent dignity of every human person from conception to natural death and bridging the political divide with Our Lord at the center. She and her husband, Mitch, have two children on earth and one in Heaven.
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Chenele Shaw, National Eucharistic Pilgrimage Project Lead
Chenele holds a B.A. in theology from Ave Maria University and is Co-Director of the Before Gethsemane Initiative. She is the host of podcast Ave Spotlight with Ave Maria Press, secretary for The Human Condition Community, and a contributing writer to various Catholic publications, including Grotto Network, The Catholic Woman, and Our Sunday Visitor. Prior to her current work, Chenele taught Theology and Catholic Social Teaching in New Orleans and spent a couple years as a Director of Youth Ministry in Denver, CO. She currently resides in Florida and can usually be found searching for the best local ice cream, hosting friends at her home, and planning her next national parks trip.
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Father Christopher Iwancio, OFM Cap, Chaplain
Father Iwancio is a member of the Western American Province of the Capuchin Franciscans who was ordained in 2015 and is currently assigned as Chaplain at St. Francis High School in La Canada, CA, which is just outside of Pasadena. For a number of years, he has been interested in pilgrimages, having chaperoned a number of them with young people as well as eventually walking the Camino in Spain. As part of his doctoral dissertation, he studied the influence of pilgrimage on young people.
The Project is Born
In March 2017, two friends set out to walk the 75 miles from Lexington, KY to the Abbey of Gethsemani, the Trappist monastery famous as Thomas Merton's residence. Along the way, Will Peterson and David Cable spent two nights with hosts coordinated by Catholic parishes and one night at an interfaith homeless shelter. This pilgrimage, supported by Religion News Service and culminating with an interview with a monk who had Merton as his novice master and spiritual director, sparked a realization and a call for Will and David. There was enormous fruit in the walk, the community, the prayer, the destination, and the hospitality of the hosts along the way. And so, the project that would become Modern Catholic Pilgrim was born.
OUR ORIGINS
Board of Directors
David Cable, Co-Founder
and Board Chair
Eagle Scout with experience backpacking throughout North and South America. Realized powerful lessons in humility and hospitality through traveling with others in unfamiliar territory. Encountered God’s glory within the wilderness of His creation. Taught social studies and religion for two years at a high-poverty parochial school in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Witnessed the strength and generosity of a tight-knit and generous community within a poverty-stricken area. Currently, working from Minneapolis, MN in research and sales for a prominent software company.
Cort Peters,
Vice-Chair
An alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, he completed the university's ACE teaching program before spending three years in the Congregation of Holy Cross's seminary. From there, Cort has spent time as a principal of multiple Catholic schools and, having received his Master's in Sport Performance and Psychology, now counsels athletes at all levels on how to sustain growth in their respective sports. His counsel extends to pilgrims as well. He is a retreat leader and spiritual director as well as the co-founder of Abba Father Institute and Play Like A Champion Today San Diego.
Anthony J. Petz,
Secretary/Treasurer
A native of Detroit, Anthony moved to San Diego in 2014. His first pilgrimage experience was a 32-day/500-mile trek along the historic El Camino Real, visiting eleven of the twenty-one California missions (starting at Mission San Diego de Alcalá, in San Diego and ending at Mission San Antonio de Padua, northwest of Jolon). Anthony currently works as a CPA in San Diego. His spiritual heroes include San Junipero Serra, Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, and Blessed Solanus Casey. Siempre adelante! Verso l'alto! Blessed be God in all His Designs!