Pilgrimage for the Third World
October 28, 2001  - Niagara – Ontario, Canada  
by Jim Mulligan, CSC

On a beautiful fall Sunday, close to 3,000 students from the nine Catholic high schools in Niagara participated in the annual Pilgrimage for the Third World.  The “pilgrimage” is a walk to a holy place; the holy place is the school gym in four centres – Welland, Port Colborne, St. Catharine’s and Niagara Falls - where, at the conclusion of a 20-kilometre walk, students, staff and many alumni and parents gather for a celebration of the Eucharist.  The month leading up to the pilgrimage is a time for justice education.  It is also a time for “pilgrims” to seek out sponsors for their walk.  

The English Canadian Province of Holy Cross is keenly involved in the animation of the pilgrimage experience.  The first pilgrimage took place 26 years ago at Notre Dame College School, Welland, a Catholic high school founded and staffed by the Holy Cross Fathers.  From Notre Dame, Holy Cross priests were responsible for starting Denis Morris and Holy Cross high schools in St. Catharine’s and Saint Paul in Niagara Falls.  In 1985, Catholic high schools in Ontario received full government funding and the high schools came under the administration of a Catholic school board.  There are still a hand full of Holy Cross Fathers who continue to work at formation and animation in the Catholic schools in Niagara.  The impact on justice education and the support for Third World development remain strong and have a definite Holy Cross orientation.

There are concrete links with Holy Cross communities in Peru, Haiti and Dominica.

For many years now, Notre Dame, Welland has twinned with the Holy Cross community in Canto Grande, Lima Peru.  Yancana Huasy is a therapy centre for physically and developmentally challenged young adults in Canto Grande.  Much of the building of this centre was made possible by funds from Notre Dame over the last 15 years.  On four occasions since 1988, teachers from Notre Dame have visited Canto Grande and have returned to share that story with students.  This year as a result of their 26^th annual pilgrimage, Notre Dame will direct $12,500 to Yancana Huasy (with another $12,500 matched by the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace - CCODP).  As well, close to $40,000 from this year’s Notre Dame pilgrimage will be directed to CCCODP for long-term development work. 

Three schools in St. Catharine’s and one school in Niagara Falls are linked to the Holy Cross Sisters’ teachers college – Collège Régina Assumpta – in Cap-Haitien, Haiti.  In each of the last three years, groups of students and teachers from Saint Paul High School and Holy Cross High School have travelled to Haiti on a Third World immersion experience.  From their pilgrimage this year, these schools will direct more than $20,000 to help support this vitally important teachers’ college.  And these funds will be matched by a Canadian foundation.

And in Port Colborne, Lakeshore Catholic high school has become affiliated with Brother Ron Rumbolt and Father Lloyd Bechamp, members of the English Canadian Province working in Dominica in the West Indies.  Lakeshore Catholic, too, has had students and teachers visit Dominica and so there is a strong identification and an awareness of the social and economic needs in this very poor Caribbean island.  Money raised at Lakeshore Catholic will be directed to Dominica.

The “Pilgrimage for the Third World” has become the centrepiece of the life of these Catholic high schools.  Each pilgrimage experience is a time for building community, putting feet on the gospel and learning about and contributing to the common good.  Each “pilgrimage” experience is an act of solidarity and an occasion to invite young people to grow in understanding and in embracing the option for the poor.

Perhaps the liturgical dance that served as the opening prayer for Notre Dame’s Eucharist expresses best the pilgrimage experience:



Based on Luke’s story of the poor man Lazarus and the rich man inside his secure walls, the dance depicts how the chains of ignorance and greed bind both the wealthy first world in indifference and the poor third world in material poverty.  And the dance shows forcefully how the light of God’s word is so necessary to break those chains that bind.  The pilgrimage has become a little piece of that gospel light --- the gospel with feet on it.