A Catholic Pilgrimage to Italy

Pilgrims gather at Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport (MSP) for the overnight transatlantic flight to Rome. We depart on Delta Flight 298 at 8:20 PM, arriving at Rome Fiumicino the following afternoon. Full flight details are listed in the Group Flight Information section below.

Arrival at Rome Fiumicino Airport (FCO) at 12:40 PM. Your ProRome Tour Manager meets the group and transfers you by private motorcoach to your accommodation near the Vatican. We begin with a walking tour of the Centro Storico: the Pantheon, the best-preserved monument of ancient Rome and a church since 609, when Boniface IV consecrated it to Our Lady and all the Martyrs; Piazza Navona, with Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers and the church of Sant’Agnese in Agone raised over the site of the young martyr’s death; and the smaller churches and relics of the old city that most visitors walk straight past. Welcome dinner together as a group.

Mass: a church in the Centro Storico, to be confirmed.

Early breakfast. This morning we make our way to St. Peter’s Square for the Papal Wednesday General Audience with the Holy Father, joining pilgrims from every nation in the heart of the Universal Church. ProRome arranges the ticket reservation in advance; the Holy Father typically processes through the crowd, delivers his catechesis, and imparts the Apostolic Blessing. We continue to Castel Sant’Angelo, raised as the mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian and later the fortress of the popes, connected to the Vatican by the Passetto, the covered wall-walk along which Clement VII escaped during the Sack of Rome in 1527. The ramparts give the finest single view of St. Peter’s dome in the city. Free afternoon for personal exploration, rest, or confession. Group dinner.

Mass: St. Peter’s Basilica or a nearby church, following the Audience.

Breakfast. The morning is given to Ancient Rome, where the empire that once persecuted the Church was eventually transformed by it: the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Palatine Hill, with the Arch of Constantine commemorating the emperor whose Edict of Milan ended the persecutions. In the afternoon we cross the city to the Lateran. The Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano is the Cathedral of Rome and “Mother and Head of All Churches in the City and the World,” with the relics of Saints Peter and Paul in its Gothic tabernacle, the apse mosaic, and bronze doors carried here from the ancient Roman Senate. Across the street, for those who wish, is the Scala Santa, the marble stairs from Pontius Pilate’s praetorium, traditionally climbed on the knees with one Our Father on each of the twenty-eight steps. We finish at Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, built by St. Helena to house the relics she brought back from the Holy Land: fragments of the True Cross, the Titulus Crucis, two thorns from the Crown of Thorns, a nail from the Crucifixion, and the finger of Doubting Thomas. Group dinner.

Mass: San Giovanni in Laterano or Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

Breakfast. A guided morning in the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel: the Raphael Rooms (The School of Athens, The Disputation of the Holy Sacrament), the Gallery of Maps, the Gallery of Tapestries, and finally Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, with the ceiling of 1508–1512 and The Last Judgment of 1536–1541. Free time for lunch on your own. The afternoon is a guided tour of St. Peter’s Basilica: Michelangelo’s Pietà, Bernini’s Baldachin over the Confession, the tomb of St. Peter, and the Papal Tombs in the Vatican Grottoes. For those interested, an optional ascent of the Cupola gives a panorama across Rome and the Vatican Gardens. Group dinner.

Mass: St. Peter’s Basilica or a nearby church.

Breakfast. We begin at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, the second-largest church in Rome, raised over the tomb of the Apostle to the Gentiles: the golden mosaic apse, the papal portrait medallions encircling the nave, the chains of St. Paul, and the Cosmati cloister. We then descend into the Catacombs of San Sebastiano on the Via Appia Antica, walking the same passages where the early Christians buried their martyrs and where the bodies of Saints Peter and Paul were once transferred for safekeeping during the persecutions. Group lunch together.

The afternoon offers an optional excursion to Monte Cassino, roughly two hours south of Rome: the motherhouse of the Benedictine Order, founded by St. Benedict himself in 529 and the place where he wrote the Rule and died. Destroyed and rebuilt four times across fifteen centuries, most recently after the devastating battle of 1944, it stands today rebuilt where it was, as it was. We tour the abbey church, the cloisters, and the museum. Pilgrims not joining the excursion have a free afternoon in Rome. Group dinner.

Mass: Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, or the Abbey of Monte Cassino for those on the excursion.

Breakfast. This morning we depart Rome by private motorcoach for Subiaco, approximately 1.5 hours east in the Aniene Valley. Our destination is the Monastery of San Benedetto (Sacro Speco), built directly into the cliff face above the cave where the young St. Benedict lived as a hermit for three years. Sunday Mass at the Sacro Speco, followed by a tour of the chapels and oratories ascending into the rock, with their thirteenth-century frescoes of extraordinary beauty, the Holy Grotto itself, and the earliest known portrait of St. Francis of Assisi. We then visit the nearby Monastery of Santa Scolastica, the last survivor of the twelve monasteries Benedict founded in this valley, and the oldest continuously occupied Benedictine house in the world.

We return to Rome by approximately 3:00 PM and visit the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the fourth of the great Papal Basilicas and the oldest church in the West dedicated to Our Lady: the Salus Populi Romani, the relic of the Holy Crib, the fifth-century triumphal arch mosaics, and the tombs of Pope St. Pius V and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Group dinner.

Mass: Monastery of San Benedetto (Sacro Speco), Subiaco.

Breakfast and check-out from the Rome accommodation. We board the private motorcoach and head north into Umbria, to Assisi. The afternoon is a guided tour of the two great basilicas. At the Basilica of San Francesco we descend to the crypt to venerate the tomb of St. Francis, then visit the Lower Church with its Cimabue and early Giotto frescoes and side chapels by Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti, and finally the Upper Church, home to Giotto’s monumental 28-panel fresco cycle of the life of St. Francis. We walk on through the medieval streets to the Basilica of Santa Chiara, where we venerate the tomb of St. Clare and the San Damiano Crucifix. This crucifix is the very cross that spoke to Francis and said: “Francis, go and rebuild my church, which as you can see is falling into ruin.” Group dinner.

Mass: Basilica of San Francesco, Assisi.

Breakfast. We begin the morning below the town at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the vast church built to shelter three small Franciscan places: the Portiuncula, the tiny chapel Francis rebuilt with his own hands and where he founded the Order; the Cappella del Transito, the cell where he died on the evening of October 3, 1226; and the Rose Garden Chapel, where he threw himself into a briar patch to resist temptation and the brambles are said to have bloomed into thornless roses.

We then cross the Valle Umbra and climb into the Sibillini foothills to Norcia, roughly an hour and a half from Assisi: the birthplace of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica, and a fitting bookend to the Subiaco and Monte Cassino days earlier in the pilgrimage. We visit the Monks of Norcia, whose Benedictine community continues its life of ora et labora in the hills above the town, and the famed market of the Valnerina: cured meats, mountain cheeses, black truffles, and the small lentils of Castelluccio. Dinner on your own back in Assisi.

Mass: Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, or in Norcia.

Breakfast, then morning Mass. We ascend the slopes of Mount Subasio to the Eremo delle Carceri, the forest hermitage where St. Francis withdrew for extended prayer in solitude. A series of caves and grottos marks the places where Francis and his earliest companions prayed, set within an ancient holm oak forest still much as it was in his day: one of the most evocative and spiritually charged sites in all of Franciscan Assisi, and one that few pilgrims ever reach. Those who prefer may instead visit San Damiano, the small church below the walls that Francis rebuilt stone by stone, where St. Clare and her sisters lived for forty years and where Francis composed the Canticle of the Creatures.

Free afternoon for personal prayer, the medieval centro storico, the Rocca Maggiore above the town, or final shopping. Group farewell dinner in Assisi.

Mass: in Assisi, church to be confirmed.

A very early breakfast and check-out from the Assisi accommodation. Private motorcoach transfer to Rome Fiumicino Airport, approximately 2.5 hours south. We depart Rome on Air France Flight 1205 at 10:00 AM, connect at Paris Charles de Gaulle to Air France Flight 088, and arrive back at Minneapolis–St. Paul at 7:50 PM the same day. Full return details are in the Group Flight Information section below.