{"id":4811,"date":"2026-04-08T01:42:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/4811\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T01:42:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T01:42:36","slug":"students-bring-chestertons-example-of-faith-from-the-u-s-to-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/4811\/","title":{"rendered":"Students bring Chesterton’s example of faith from the U.S. to Rome"},"content":{"rendered":"

Approximately 240 students from across the U.S. travel to Italy for a 10-day pilgrimage and in Rome, attend Pope Leo\u2019s General Audience in St. Peter’s Square. Their chaplain says their mission is to \u201cbe a sign of contradiction\u201d to the voices that \u201cdo not appreciate the truth of the Gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Kielce Gussie and Fabrizio Peloni<\/p>\n

Each week, pilgrims from across the globe gather in St. Peter\u2019s Square\u2014weather permitting\u2014for the papal General Audience. This week, a group of students kicked off their capstone pilgrimage to Rome seeing Pope Leo in the Square.<\/p>\n

The Chesterton Rome Pilgrimage takes place each year and brings high school years from various parts of the United States to the Eternal City.<\/p>\n

Day two: A papal audience <\/p>\n

For the next eight days, students will travel around Rome, Florence, and Assisi visiting churches and pilgrimage sites\u2014being immersed in art and architecture and history.<\/p>\n

Even though it\u2019s only day two of the ten-day pilgrimage, Nora Kennedy\u2014one of the students from the Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family in Illinois\u2014described being in Rome as \u201cthe best experience\u201d of her life.<\/p>\n

She expressed her joy at being able to live the experience with her friends as unforgettable. Starting off the Wednesday at the General Audience was a special moment for Nora. \u201cSeeing [the Pope] go by was so cool [and] hearing him address us in English\u2014this I just can\u2019t even put into words yet how impactful this has all been.\u201d<\/p>\n

This feeling is one that Konstantinos Karnezis, Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family near Chicago, shared. \u201cBeing here has honestly been such a blessing. It’s something that I’ve honestly looked forward to ever since my freshman year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fr. Joseph Johnson is the chaplain for the Network and his role, as he defined it, is to accompany the young people on their journey. This year, the pilgrimage was extra special as the 240 students were able to see Pope Leo\u2014a fellow American.<\/p>\n

The group was able \u201cto both rejoice in the Holy Father coming from our own land, but also rejoice with all the Catholics of the world here\u201d in St. Peter\u2019s Square in \u201cBernini\u2019s great colonnade, which welcomes pilgrims from all of the world that we\u2019re all brothers and sisters together, one family in faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n The students came from all different parts of the U.S. for this capstone pilgrimage\n <\/p>\n

Chesterton Schools Network works directly with ProRome Tours of Front Royal, Virginia, USA to make all these pilgrimages possible.<\/p>\n

Joe Long, President and CEO of ProRome Tours, has been planning pilgrimages to Italy for Chesterton schools since 2019. He works with a team of faithful Catholics dedicated to helping pilgrimage groups experience their faith in a profound and memorable way.<\/p>\n

As Long said, \u201cEvery Catholic should have the opportunity to walk where saints have walked, to pray where martyrs died, and to touch the stones that witnessed miracles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inspired by the \u201capostle of common sense\u201d <\/p>\n

These students come from the Chesterton Schools Network, a Catholic non-profit apostolate dedicated to inspiring and supporting Catholic high schools around the United States and equipping parents to be the principal educators of their children.<\/p>\n

G.K. Chesterton\u2014the English author, philosopher, and apologist\u2014became the inspiration for this network. Co-founders Tom Bengtson and Dale Ahlquist looked to the man known as the \u201capostle of common sense\u201d, to create a classical, integrated high school education that is affordable to all.<\/p>\n

For Nora, her experience at Chesterton has been life-changing. \u201cMy favorite thing about Chesterton is that faith is at the center of everything that we do\u2014from daily Mass, confession, adoration, but then also in my friendships and the way that Christ is at the center of all of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a classroom setting where the school is centered on three types of formation\u2014intellectual, character, and spiritual\u2014students study great works by foundational authors, such as Homer, Plato, Dante, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi, and, of course, G.K. Chesterton.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the classical curriculum and how it teaches me how to think and how to articulate my thoughts\u201d, Nora shared, noting that she understands how this will serve her in whatever settings throughout her life.<\/p>\n

Faith plays a central role in the overall growth of the students at the Chesterton schools. \u201cAll my classmates are oriented towards Christ and bringing me closer to Him, and I do the same\u201d, Nora explained. This shared focus on faith and prayer, she highlighted, deepened their friendships.<\/p>\n

A sign of contradiction today <\/p>\n

\u201cJust like Chesterton in his own day was a sign of contradiction to those around him,\u201d Fr. Johnson said, \u201cso we today find ourselves standing in opposition to the secularism and those other voices in our world that don\u2019t appreciate the truth of the Gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n

He argued that nowadays, we are all called to be witnesses of the Gospel message, avoiding anger. \u201cThere are too many angry voices in the world,\u201d the chaplain stressed, \u201cWe want to follow Chesterton\u2019s example of giving a witness with joy, hope, and love.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Approximately 240 students from across the U.S. travel to Italy for a 10-day pilgrimage and in Rome, attend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[526,3588,3589,27,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-4811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rome","8":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","9":"tag-general-audience","10":"tag-interview","11":"tag-rome","12":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}