From https://www.ncregister.com/
The pilgrimage to Brittany’s Sainte-Anne-d’Auray Shrine combines evangelization, traditional liturgy and cultural heritage to draw new generations to the faith.
A rapidly growing pilgrimage in western France is showing how a new Catholic movement can be successfully founded by focusing on mission, tradition and heritage.
The Feiz e Breizh pilgrimage, meaning “Faith in Brittany,” began in 2017, the initiative of four lay Catholic friends and backed by their local ordinary, Bishop Raymond Centène of Vannes.
“They wanted to create a special event that brings people together by focusing on what is essential: their faith,” said Korantin Denis, the pilgrimage’s current director. “So their objective was to create a family pilgrimage open to everyone.”
The two-day journey, covering 30 to 40 miles at the end of September, concludes at the famous shrine of Sainte-Anne-d’Auray, where the grandmother of Jesus appeared to Yvon Nicolazic in the 17th century — the only recorded and Church-approved apparition of St. Anne, Brittany’s patroness.
“The pilgrimage strengthens the community and draws on the bonds between men and women who share the same roots,” Denis told the traditionalist Pax Liturgica conference at the Vatican last October. “It is about the Gospel renunciation of worldliness. We focus on friendship and sacrifice, stripping away what is secondary in order to concentrate on what is essential.”
Although smaller than major events such as the Chartres pilgrimage, which attracts around 20,000 participants at Pentecost, Feiz e Breizh has grown rapidly. Open to everyone, attendance has risen from 120 pilgrims in its first year to around 2,200 in 2025, making it one of Brittany’s largest Catholic pilgrimages.
Denis attributes this growth to a shared spirit of sacrifice and common effort. “It leads to the virtue of compassion, ‘suffering with’ others, which becomes genuine fraternal charity and mercy,” he explained. “Ultimately, pilgrimage is a journey towards a noble, transcendent goal. During these two days we try to obtain the graces our country needs — graces for our society, our families and ourselves — because the first virtue we seek through prayer is to preserve the faith.”
Mission is the first of the pilgrimage’s three pillars. It seeks to evangelize Breton families, especially the young, presenting the journey as a time of conversion and sanctification through prayer, suffering through physical effort and hymns of praise for the salvation of souls. “We walk to glorify God, to sanctify souls, and to root our faith more deeply,” Denis said.
He noted that the pilgrimage has enriched many pilgrims’ faith, adding that some had never been to church before. “Now they come, and they bring their friends,” he said. “This gives us strength because we’ve had many conversions over time. We are basically feeding a fire that is growing, and this is important for us.”
The second pillar, tradition, is expressed through celebration of the Tridentine Mass, Gregorian chant and traditional Breton hymns. Denis underlined that this aspect is grounded in the Church’s magisterium and the teachings of the doctors of the Church, as well as through “prayer, silence and adoration, without focusing on passing controversies or temporary issues.”
The third pillar, heritage, highlights Brittany’s unique cultural and religious identity. This includes the Breton language, parish banners, traditional costumes, and bagad pipe bands, alongside devotion to local saints — estimated at around 2,000 — and the region’s rich spiritual history. “Brittany is a very Catholic land,” Denis said. “The density of religious heritage is remarkable.” In an era of globalization, he added, the culture of Brittany “is actually dying,” and so safeguarding this inheritance is especially important.
The pilgrimage itself is organized into chapters, or groups, often placed under the patronage of local saints. Along the route, pilgrims pray the Rosary, listen to spiritual talks, sing hymns in Breton and French, and take part in meditations.
Saturday evening typically includes a bivouac (improvised campsite) and a torchlight procession, followed by Eucharistic adoration and nighttime prayer.
On Sunday, the pilgrims enter the Sainte‑Anne‑d’Auray Shrine in solemn procession, often accompanied by a bagad, and perform a “triple tour” of the basilica honoring the Holy Trinity, before attending a pontifical Mass.
“All this has been possible thanks, above all, to the action of the Holy Spirit,” Denis said, expressing gratitude to the many volunteers whose “unseen but essential” work sustains the event.
Asked what advice he would give to any other group of faithful thinking of founding their own such pilgrimage, Denis stressed to the Register the importance of securing their bishop’s approval, “otherwise he will be cross!”
“We received a very strong message from the bishop of Vannes,” he said, recalling how he urged Brittany Catholics “to rise up and reclaim the heritage of faith handed down by their ancestors” in the face of the “sad spectacle of a world without memory and without identity.”
Today, Denis said around 15 similar pilgrimage projects have been inspired by the work of Feiz e Breizh, adopting its threefold focus on mission, tradition and heritage.
Denis also emphasized that tradition must be integrated with local culture. “You do not look back on the past with nostalgia,” he said, “but draw on its riches to build the future.”
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