The Piekary pilgrimage is the largest. Men and boys from the towns of Upper Silesia gather at the Marian shrine at Piekary Śląskie, where the Archbishop of Katowice addresses them; the Italian bishops’ news agency has reported attendance of more than 100,000. Cotignac is smaller and more personal. By the sanctuary’s account it began in 1976, when a father walked there from Aix-en-Provence in thanksgiving for the safe birth of his child. Today men walk over three days in small groups called chapters and converge on the sanctuary of Our Lady of Graces and the nearby shrine of St. Joseph. In Ireland the Dominican friars lead a one-day St. Joseph Men’s Camino of about 25 km (16 miles) in the Boyne Valley.
Men who cannot join one of these often make their own. A father and son, brothers, or a group of friends can walk the last 100 km (62 miles) of the Camino de Santiago in five or six days and receive the Compostela at the end. Others go to the saints men have long looked to: St. Joseph, at Cotignac or at St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal; St. John Bosco, buried at Valdocco in Turin; and St. Pier Giorgio Frassati, the young mountaineer canonized in 2025, whose tomb is in Turin Cathedral. Turin and the Piedmont Alps, in the company of those two saints, is the kind of men’s and father-and-son journey Bold Pilgrim describes. Current and former U.S. service members can apply to the Warriors to Lourdes program for the International Military Pilgrimage.
Good to know before you go: men’s pilgrimages are usually organized locally, by a shrine, a diocese, or a men’s movement, and registration is through a local group, so start by asking your parish or diocese what already exists near you. Most are walking pilgrimages with simple lodging, with Mass, the Rosary, and confession along the way. Expect to be tired, and to talk more honestly on the road than you would at home.