St. Junípero Serra’s Camino

Sept. 1, 2025

A weekend walking pilgrimage honors the Apostle of California through prayer and public witness

By James Day

Sept. 1, 2025

Hundreds of pilgrims journey down La Conchita Beach in Ventura, Calif., during the fifth annual St. Junípero Serra Walking Pilgrimage on Aug. 10. The two-day pilgrimage covers 35 miles from Mission Santa Barbara to Mission Basilica San Buenaventura. (Photo by David Swanson)

In the 1950s, Dehonian Father Gregory Bezy launched the Sacred Heart Auto League to promote “reparation driving” by distributing statues of the Sacred Heart to motorists. In Southern California, the St. Junípero Serra Walking Pilgrimage might be considered a kind of “reparation walking.” The two-day, 35-mile pilgrimage has grown from 125 participants several years ago to more than 350 last month. Pilgrims set out from Mission Santa Barbara on Aug. 9 and arrived the next day at Mission Basilica San Buenaventura — where a 3,000-pound statue of Serra, removed from Ventura City Hall in 2020 amid anti-colonial protests, now stands.

Greg Wood, a parishioner at the mission basilica and member of Santa Clara Valley Council 3608 in Santa Paula, first organized the pilgrimage in 2021 in response to the statue’s desecration and to the broader defamation of Serra’s character. “I wanted to honor him and his holiness as a positive response to the violence, destruction and lies,” Wood said.

The popularity of the now-annual event reflects growing interest in pilgrimages in the United States, notably seen in the National Eucharistic Pilgrimages of 2024 and 2025. Yet pilgrimage has long been central to the California missions, beginning in 1769 with St. Junípero Serra and his fellow Franciscan missionaries from Spain.

“We offer Mass each day, and a Holy Hour and confession on Saturday evening so pilgrims can experience those graces,” Wood said. This year, a plenary indulgence was available at Mission Basilica San Buenaventura, designated a holy site for the Jubilee Year. Pilgrims also prayed for Pope Leo XIV’s August intention — that societies might not succumb to confrontation for ethnic, political, religious or ideological reasons.

“It was a great blessing to start this Jubilee pilgrimage from Santa Barbara with all pilgrims carrying Pope Leo’s intention with us,” said Father John Paul Ouellette, a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal based in Oakland and the pilgrimage’s chaplain. “All in union with the Church in prayer.”

Though El Camino Real is historically known as the pilgrim trail linking the 21 Franciscan missions, there is no single trail. Pilgrims on the Serra pilgrimage navigated city streets and coastal paths, aided by local Knights of Columbus councils.

District Deputy Edward Castillo, past grand knight of Oxnard (Calif.) Council 750, coordinated lunch for the pilgrims at Pier Shoals Beach in Ventura. “These people have taken the time to walk for Christ,” Castillo said. “When I saw the line of pilgrims approach, it reminded me of those who go before the Body of Christ in the Eucharist.”

A growing number of young families have joined the pilgrimage each year. “The sense of adventure, camaraderie, and to be part of a joyful witness of faith is a big attraction,” Wood said. “This year, a group of energetic and enthusiastic young people from those families carried all the pilgrimage banners.”

Hopeful the annual event might even foster vocations, Wood added, “Perhaps we are planting seeds to carry our Church forward!”

His hope echoes the motto of St. Junípero Serra himself: Siempre adelante, nunca atrás — “Always forward, never back.”

*****

JAMES DAY is the television operations manager for EWTN’s West Coast studio in California and the author of five books.

Students and staff members of Holy Innocents School stand before custom-printed fencing screens donated by Msgr. John Cawley
Council 3629 in Lakewood, Calif., in 2022. The screens provide much-needed privacy to the playground of the school, which is
located in a busy urban neighborhood in Long Beach.

St. Junípero Serra’s Camino

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