Why make this pilgrimage
Many women arrive at this pilgrimage carrying other people: a child who has left the Church, a marriage under strain, a parent who is dying, a household that runs because they run it. Others come at a turning point, when the last child has left home, a husband has died or a vocation is unclear. The desire underneath is simple. You want several days in a row to pray, in the company of women who understand, and to ask who God is asking you to be.
This pilgrimage answers by going to the women the Church has set before everyone as teachers and witnesses, and standing where they lived, prayed and are buried. They do not make one type: a Dominican tertiary who urged a pope to return to Rome, a mother who prayed for years for her son, a widow who became a lifelong pilgrim, a woman who lived more than forty years in one small convent. What they share is Christ, and He is the one this journey seeks.
THE JOURNEY
In the Company of Holy Women: Rome, Siena and Assisi
- Where
- Italy
- Length
- About nine or ten days
- Status
- Under consideration
The journey would begin in Rome, at the tombs of St. Catherine of Siena and St. Monica and the church of St. Bridget of Sweden, then travel north to Siena, the city where Catherine was born, and cross into Umbria to end in Assisi with St. Clare. The order moves from the crowded city to the quiet one: Rome gives the witnesses, Siena lets one of them be known at home, and Assisi, with San Damiano at the end, leaves room for stillness before the return. A text from each saint would be read in the place where she lived it.
The route, and why each place belongs
- 1
Rome: Santa Maria sopra Minerva
Why it belongs
St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church and co-patroness of Europe, died in Rome in 1380, and her body is venerated under the high altar of this church. A women's pilgrimage would begin with a woman the whole Church calls a teacher.
What you would do there
Pilgrims would kneel at her tomb beneath the high altar, a few steps from the Pantheon, and hear a page of her Dialogue read aloud before a time of silent prayer.
- 2
Rome: Basilica of Sant'Agostino
Why it belongs
St. Monica's tomb is here. Benedict XVI said that she is considered the model and patroness of Christian mothers, and she prayed for years for a son who had left the faith.
What you would do there
This would be the place to name the people each woman carries. Monica asked only to be remembered at the altar of the Lord, so the visit would be given to intercession for children and family, with written intentions left in prayer. The Church promises no particular outcome; her example is perseverance and trust.
- 3
Rome: Santa Brigida and the churches of the women saints
Why it belongs
St. Bridget of Sweden, wife, mother, widow and lifelong pilgrim, settled in Rome, and her church stands at Piazza Farnese. For the Jubilee of 2025 the Holy See published a route through Rome honouring six women saints; the Holy Year has ended, but the churches remain.
What you would do there
An unhurried walk through the historic centre could link Santa Brigida with the Minerva and Sant'Agostino, which lie a few minutes apart. It would also recall St. Thérèse of Lisieux, who came to Rome as a girl pilgrim in 1887 with her father and sister.
- 4
Siena: the Sanctuary of St. Catherine's house and the Basilica of San Domenico
Why it belongs
Siena is Catherine's birthplace. She was one of the Mantellate, a Dominican tertiary who lived at home and not in a cloister, so her holiness was worked out in a family house and a city's streets. San Domenico keeps the relic of her head.
What you would do there
Pilgrims would visit the sanctuary at her family home and pray before her relic in San Domenico, having first met her at her tomb in Rome. A passage of her own words would be read here, in the city that formed her.
- 5
Assisi: the Basilica of St. Clare
Why it belongs
St. Clare is buried here. According to Benedict XVI she was the first woman in the Church's history to write a Rule submitted for papal approval, and hers is the women's half of the Franciscan story.
What you would do there
Pilgrims would pray at her tomb in the basilica and be given open time afterward in the upper town, with space for prayer and an unhurried meal together.
- 6
Assisi: San Damiano
Why it belongs
San Damiano is the convent where Clare spent her religious life. After the tombs and the streets of Rome and Siena, the journey would end in the place where a woman simply stayed with Christ.
What you would do there
The approach to the convent would be made quietly. There pilgrims would pray in the place where Clare lived with her sisters for more than forty years, and the journey's last shared prayer, the Magnificat, could be said here.
Prayer and the sacraments
Mass would be attended where the schedule permits, and clergy arrangements are confirmed for each departure; Confession would be offered where confessors are available. The Rosary and the Magnificat could be prayed aloud together, with silent time before the Blessed Sacrament and a short reading from Catherine, Clare or the Gospel accounts of the women who followed Jesus at each place.
Pilgrim’s Time
Pilgrim's Time, the protected unscheduled time inside the pilgrimage, would be kept in each of the three bases. It could be used to return alone to a tomb, to go to Confession, to write, or to sit over a long meal with a daughter, a mother or a friend, since conversation between women of different ages is often where what was heard in prayer gets said aloud.
Pilgrim Pace
Rome would mean long days on foot and some standing in queues, and Siena and Assisi are steep hill towns with cobbles and steps. A group spanning three generations would generally do best with one site per half-day.
How Pilgrim Pace worksIf you can stay longer
A woman who can stay on could keep one or two further unscheduled days in Assisi for rest and prayer before returning home.
Other ways to make this pilgrimage
- The Rome & Assisi Classic, with the women saints in view. The Classic's Assisi days include the Basilica of St. Clare, and its flexible time in Rome could be given to the Minerva and Sant'Agostino, though neither church is a fixed stop on the sample itinerary.
- Carmel: Ávila, Alba de Tormes and Lisieux. A journey through St. Teresa of Ávila and St. Thérèse of Lisieux could be built on the Carmelite teaching on prayer, with protected silence, either across two countries or as two separate journeys.
- With the women of the Gospel in the Holy Land. Nazareth, Ein Karem, Magdala and the empty tomb could be read through Mary, Elizabeth and Mary Magdalene, subject to conditions at the time.
No dated departures are currently announced. This is a journey Bold Pilgrim is considering, described so you can picture it. Dates, priest, Gateway Airport and price are published on a departure itself, and only when confirmed.
Who it may be for
Any woman. St. John Paul II's Letter to Women thanks women who are mothers, wives, daughters and sisters, women who work, and consecrated women, and then every woman for the simple fact of being a woman. A women's pilgrimage has room for all of them at once: single and married, widowed and divorced, mothers and women who have no children, the devout and the woman who has not been to Confession in twenty years. It suits a parish women's group, a circle of friends, a mother and daughter, or a woman who comes by herself. A woman coming alone should ask how rooms are assigned and whether she can be paired with a roommate; Bold Pilgrim's solo pilgrimage guide covers the planning.
It excludes no one from these saints. Catherine, Teresa, Thérèse and Hildegard are Doctors of the whole Church, and men have every reason to go to their shrines; a mixed pilgrimage to Ávila or Siena loses nothing. Choosing to travel as women is a choice about company, not a claim that these places belong to women.
Where it leads is the place it started. Mary Magdalene went to a tomb before dawn looking for the Lord and came back with one sentence for the Apostles: I have seen the Lord. Every shrine on this road is there to make that sentence possible again.
- Parish women's groups, Bible studies and Catholic women's ministries
- Friends who want to make a pilgrimage together instead of a holiday
- Mothers and daughters, including adult daughters and three generations
- Women travelling on their own who would rather not go alone
- Mothers praying for their children
- Women at a turning point: an empty house, widowhood, a new job, retirement, an unclear vocation
- Single women and women discerning marriage or consecrated life
- Religious sisters and consecrated women
- Women returning to the Church or looking at it for the first time
A spiritual purpose has no Pilgrim Pace rating; the actual itinerary determines the pace. Physically, Rome means long days on foot and standing in queues, Assisi and Siena are steep hill towns with cobbles, and Ávila and Lisieux are compact. Groups spanning three generations generally do best with one base and one site per half-day.
UNDERSTANDING THIS PILGRIMAGE
A women's pilgrimage is a Catholic pilgrimage made by women together, usually to places tied to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to holy women such as St. Mary Magdalene, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Ávila and St. Thérèse of Lisieux. It has the same heart as any pilgrimage: Mass, Confession, prayer and a road walked toward Jesus Christ. What is particular is the company and the witnesses: women praying beside women, in the footsteps of women the Church calls saints, Doctors and patronesses.
What a women's pilgrimage is
A women's pilgrimage is a journey women make together to the places of the Church's holy women, to pray, receive the sacraments and follow Christ as the women of the Gospel did. It is a Catholic pilgrimage in the ordinary sense. What marks it out is the company and the witnesses.
It is worth saying what this is not. It is not a holiday with friends that happens to pass some churches, and it is not built on a stereotype of what women like. The saints on this road include a Dominican tertiary who urged a pope to return to Rome, a reformer who founded convents across Spain, a young Carmelite who died at twenty-four in her enclosure, and a philosopher killed at Auschwitz. They do not make one type. What they share is Christ.
The Catholic foundation: the women who followed Him
The first women's pilgrimage is in the Gospels. Women travelled with Jesus and the Twelve from Galilee and provided for them out of their own means. St. John Paul II, in Mulieris Dignitatem, notes that at the Crucifixion women were in the forefront at the foot of the Cross, and that on Easter morning they were the first at the tomb and the first to find it empty. Mary Magdalene, he writes, was the first eyewitness of the Risen Christ, and so came to be called the apostle of the Apostles. In 2016 the Holy See raised her celebration on July 22 to the rank of a Feast in the Roman calendar for that reason.
Before all of them stands Mary. The same letter calls the Mother of God the most complete expression of the dignity and vocation of woman, and the Letter to Women of 1995 says the Church sees in Mary the highest expression of the feminine genius. Her own journey in haste to the hill country, to her kinswoman Elizabeth, is a meeting of two women in which Christ, still unborn, is the one who is recognized. That is the pattern: the women are the witnesses, and the Lord is the centre.
The Church gives thanks for what Benedict XVI, quoting Mulieris Dignitatem, called all the fruits of feminine holiness, and she has put some of these women in front of everyone as teachers: four women are Doctors of the Church, and three are co-patronesses of Europe. A women's pilgrimage takes that seriously enough to go and see where they lived.
Women have always gone on pilgrimage
This is not a modern invention. An article by a sociologist in L'Osservatore Romano's Women Church World, citing the chronicler Giovanni Villani, recalls that married women, widows and mothers with small children travelled to Rome for the first Jubilee in 1300, some of them alone, and puts it plainly: women have always travelled by faith. St. Bridget of Sweden, a wife, mother of a family and then a widow, made pilgrimage a central part of her life and went to the Holy Land near the end of it. St. Thérèse of Lisieux went to Rome as a girl in 1887, on a pilgrimage with her father and sister, and asked Pope Leo XIII to let her enter Carmel.
The Church has also drawn the map herself. For the Jubilee of 2025 the Dicastery for Evangelization published a pilgrim route through Rome called Patronesses of Europe and Doctors of the Church, linking churches in Rome to six women saints, among them Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Ávila and Thérèse of Lisieux. The Holy Year has ended; the churches and the saints remain.
Why women are drawn to make it together
The reasons women give are concrete. Many carry the prayer of a household: a child who has left the Church, a marriage under strain, a parent who is dying. Many are at a turning point: the last child has left home, a husband has died, a vocation is unclear, a career has ended or begun. Some simply have not had several consecutive days to pray since before they were married. A pilgrimage with other women can give permission to stop being the one who organizes everyone else.
There is also the plain fact of friendship. The same L'Osservatore Romano article observes that women tend to walk in small groups, sharing daily life and praying for specific needs. Mothers bring daughters; daughters bring mothers.
History, tradition and what the Church has said
Some places on a women's pilgrimage rest on firm history and others on tradition, and it is honest to keep them apart. That St. Catherine's body rests in Rome, that St. Clare lived at San Damiano, that St. Teresa was born in Ávila and died at Alba de Tormes are matters of record. The placing of the Visitation at Ein Karem is a tradition the Custody of the Holy Land dates to the beginning of the fourteenth century; St. Luke says only that Mary went to a town of Judah. And St. Mary Magdalene is best met as the Gospels and the liturgy present her: a disciple, a witness at the Cross and the first witness of the Resurrection.
Questions pilgrims ask
What is a Catholic women's pilgrimage?
A Catholic women's pilgrimage is a pilgrimage made by a group of women, centred like any other on Mass, Confession and prayer, and usually directed to places tied to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to women saints: St. Catherine of Siena in Rome and Siena, St. Clare in Assisi, St. Teresa in Ávila, St. Thérèse in Lisieux. The Catechism says pilgrimages evoke our earthly journey toward heaven and are special occasions for renewal in prayer. A women's pilgrimage does that in the company of other women and of the Church's holy women. Its goal is Jesus Christ.
Are there Catholic pilgrimages just for women?
Yes. Dioceses, parishes and women's ministries organize them; the newspaper of the Diocese of Phoenix, for example, reported on a group of women who walked the Camino together with a diocesan official as their spiritual guide. For the 2025 Jubilee the Holy See itself published a Rome route devoted to women saints. Bold Pilgrim does not offer a women's departure at present: no dated departures are currently announced. A parish women's group or a circle of friends can also plan a private pilgrimage of its own.
Which women saints can I visit on pilgrimage?
In Rome, St. Catherine of Siena's body rests at Santa Maria sopra Minerva and St. Monica's tomb is in the Basilica of Sant'Agostino. Assisi has St. Clare's basilica and San Damiano. Ávila has the convents of St. Teresa, who died at Alba de Tormes. Lisieux has the Carmel and home of St. Thérèse, and St. Bernadette is in Nevers. Bold Pilgrim's answers on each place carry the practical details.
Who are the women Doctors of the Church?
Four women are Doctors of the Church: St. Teresa of Ávila and St. Catherine of Siena, proclaimed by St. Paul VI in 1970, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, proclaimed by St. John Paul II in 1997, and St. Hildegard of Bingen, proclaimed by Benedict XVI in 2012. Their places of pilgrimage are Ávila and Alba de Tormes, Rome and Siena, Lisieux, and Eibingen on the Rhine, where the parish church keeps Hildegard's relics. The full answer says where each shrine is and how they fit a journey.
Is there a patron saint of women?
There is no single patron saint of all women, and lists that name one usually reflect custom. The Church's own emphasis falls on Mary, whom St. John Paul II called the highest expression of the feminine genius. Among the saints, Benedict XVI said that St. Monica is considered the model and patroness of Christian mothers, and St. John Paul II named Sts. Bridget of Sweden, Catherine of Siena and Teresa Benedicta of the Cross co-patronesses of Europe. Many women also turn to St. Mary Magdalene, the first witness of the Resurrection.
What does the Church mean by the feminine genius?
The phrase comes from St. John Paul II. In Mulieris Dignitatem (1988) the Church gives thanks for all the manifestations of the feminine genius, and in his Letter to Women (1995) he writes that society owes much to the genius of women, that the Church sees in Mary its highest expression, and that it is found in ordinary women's daily service as much as in famous ones. He names St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa of Ávila as examples.
Is a women's pilgrimage the same as a women's retreat?
No. A retreat stays in one place and withdraws into silence; a pilgrimage is a journey to holy places, and the travelling, the shrines and the company are part of the prayer. Some women's pilgrimages keep daily quiet time and a reflection alongside Mass and the visits. The full comparison is in the answer on the difference between a pilgrimage and a retreat.
Full answer: What is the difference between a pilgrimage and a retreat?
