Army style, we marched: War and peace in the cross-carrying pilgrimages to Vézelay and Walsingham, 1946-1948

Abstract

This article analyses the cross-carrying pilgrimages to Vézelay and Walsingham, staged between 1946 and 1948. These were aimed at achieving peace, penance, and reconciliation at a time when communism was on the rise, there were fears that war would return, and the nuclear threat was real. Encompassing several contingents (or Stations), these religious post-war Catholic pilgrimages stand in contrast to the ‘secular’ pilgrimages to battlefields and cemeteries after 1918. Yet they retained a strong military element because of the substantial involvement of veterans, and their organisation, leadership and articulation. This article argues that the pilgrimages gave veteran pilgrims a chance to continue their service in the form of direct spiritual action, utilising their wartime experiences in the context of pilgrimage in order to conduct these physically challenging journeys. It will also explore the wider aims of atoning for wartime actions, and the ways in which the pilgrims were received by the communities they passed through. Whilst ultimately unsustainable due to their novelty and complexity, they laid a foundation for military-penitential pilgrimages, provided an outlet for spiritual and worldly concerns, and presented Catholics (especially in Britain) in a positive light in the years immediately after the Second World War.

In his radio address of Christmas 1942, Pope Pius XII asked the faithful to manifest their faith ‘like the crusaders of old,’ and restore it through action in the face of ‘the frightful catastrophe of these times.’¹ This was the start of the Vatican’s decision to take ownership of the message of peace conveyed by Our Lady of Fatima in 1917, which declared the faithful could be saved by making sacrifices and devoting themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.² More broadly, the Pope’s address echoed references to participants in the Second World War as crusaders, which were utilised both during and after the conflict.³ In 1944, the pope acknowledged that people not only had opinions on war and peace but that they should be heard. In his Christmas Eve broadcast, Benignitas et humanitas, he told his listeners:

the peoples have, as it were, awakened from a long torpor. They have assumed, in relation to the state and those who govern, a new attitude — one that questions, criticizes, distrusts….[they] are today firmly convinced …that had there been the possibility of censuring and correcting the actions of public authority, the world would not have been dragged into the vortex of a disastrous war, and that to avoid for the future the repetition of such a catastrophe, we must vest efficient guarantees in the people itself…. There is a duty, besides, imposed on all, a duty which brooks no delay, no procrastination, no hesitation, no subterfuge: it is the duty to do everything to ban once and for all wars of aggression. ⁴

He was talking about democracy, but the content of the address also reflected contemporary discussions among Catholics about taking control and preventing another war. In the same year, British MP George Shuster argued that ‘the question of what can be done by Catholics for peace when the war is over can be answered only in terms of probably survival and growth of the peace movement.’⁵ Earlier attempts at forming a Catholic peace movement had made some headway, and as the war drew to a close a new French prayer group, Pax Christi, heavily influenced by veterans, grew quickly, showing the appetite for peace among the laity in the wake of the war.⁶ Another manifestation of this desire for peace, and specifically Catholic responses to it, were the cross-carrying peace pilgrimages that took place to Vézelay (1946) and Walsingham (1947 and 1948) when hundreds of Catholic men carried heavy wooden crosses as an act of peace and penance.⁷ The role of such religious pilgrimages in the aftermath of the Second World War is a comparatively neglected area of scholarship. There is a body of work on peace marches and pilgrimages to secular sites, for example, but none focus on the mid-to-late-1940s when Catholic cross-carrying pilgrimages took place.⁸ Similarly, the connection between military service and pilgrimage has received little treatment. The role of ex-servicemen’s pilgrimage to Lourdes has been studied by Christian Sorrel and the anthropologist John Eade, for example,⁹ but there has been no comparative analysis of English and continental pilgrimage, or of multi-contingent pilgrimages of this kind. Existing historiography instead focuses on post-First World War pilgrimage to battlefields and cemeteries, or the near-contemporary veteran pilgrimages to places like the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in America.¹⁰

Focusing on the three years immediately after the end of the war, this article tackles this gap while highlighting the lack of attention paid to the importance of pilgrimage and its use by Catholics to address the challenge set out by the pope in Benignitas et humanitas. The article considers two key areas: the elements of peace, penance, and reconciliation embedded in the pilgrimages and their simultaneous connections to the wider peace movement; and the military and veteran identity of the pilgrimage and the pilgrims. It starts by explaining the organisation and execution of the pilgrimages to Vézelay and Walsingham between 1946 and 1948, before unpicking the importance of these pilgrimages to peace (and the broader peace movement), reconciliation, and repentance. Moving on, the article then focuses on the military elements of the pilgrimages to show how veteran identity was an important factor, not just in the origins and organisation of these pilgrimages, but in their motivation and interpretation. It argues that the pilgrimages were both a continuation of military service in that they ‘fought’ for peace, and a sign of shifting attitudes to Catholicism, especially in Britain. Moreover, though the complexity of these particular multi-contingent cross-carrying pilgrimages was not repeated, they played an important role in providing an outlet for the frustrations of men who felt powerless, but who turned to faith for a solution. By focusing on the Vézelay and Walsingham pilgrimages, this article provides the first comparative study of so-called ‘military pilgrimages’. It thus adds to a growing area of scholarship considering the ‘international arena’ of religion as it relates to post-war Britain and France, a field which has increased ‘exponentially’ since the start of the twenty-first century, and says something new about the role of the relationships between pilgrimage and warfare.¹¹

The Pilgrimages to Vézelay and Walsingham

The Vézelay pilgrimage (the ‘Croisade de la Paix’ or Crusade of Peace) of 1946 was instigated by the Benedictines of Pierre-qui-Vire Abbey (Burgundy, France) when they turned their eighth annual pilgrimage into a ‘new crusade of prayer and penance for peace.’¹² This was a ‘conscious response’ to papal appeals for Christians to engage in mass acts of peace, and the first large-scale post-war pilgrimage in Europe.¹³ The practicalities of the pilgrimage are hazy, but the Church provided an ‘organizational framework’ for all kinds of adjacent activities which could be utilised, and the Catholic press in France and Britain provided ready-made ways of advertising and organising the pilgrimage.¹⁴ The numbers involved suggest it was a success: the pilgrimage attracted around 450 men walking in fourteen groups or contingents (the number chosen to reflect the Stations of the Cross). The pilgrims came primarily from towns and cities in France like Lourdes or Cherbourg, although some groups joined from Belgium, Luxembourg, and England.¹⁵ Each group carried a 90lb wooden cross, and another 30,000 pilgrims converged on Vézelay to join them in prayer. However, some aspects were not well thought out: ‘Only a few countries were represented,’ complained one pilgrim, ‘there had been difficulties with visas, there had not been time enough, there had been oversights and omissions.’¹⁶ Others may have chosen not to engage in an act which implied their guilt. Alice Cooper noted that the German Catholic Church ‘evaded its share of responsibility’ for Nazi activities, while Frederic Spotts claimed German bishops showed ‘not a trace of regret’ for their role in recent events.¹⁷ Sabrina Ramet, however, has suggested that the Catholic Church in Germany did recognise its actions had enabled the rise of National Socialism, but that theologically speaking, Catholic individuals were not responsible for the actions of others. Bishop Clemens von Galen of Munster (d. 1946) declared accusation of collective guilt was ‘unjust.’ The pope concurred, laying the blame on the Nazis alone.¹⁸

When the English contingent returned home, the Dominican friar Fr. Vann delivered a sermon urging that there ‘must be other pilgrimages like the first: similar pilgrimages in our own country.’¹⁹ This prompted several small events the following year, most of which sought peace, and most of which involved veterans. One from the diocese of Nottingham went to Padley Chapel, Derbyshire, in July 1947, while members of the Leeds Catholic Legion of Ex-Servicemen visited Walsingham, hoping it would be the first of an annual National Pilgrimage for Veterans.²⁰ Another pilgrimage to Holywell was also touted by pilgrims from the Vézelay trip but appears to have come to nothing.²¹ Other pilgrims also went to Walsingham to give thanks for avoiding bomb damage during the war itself.²²

Inspired by his experiences at Vézelay, in 1947, Captain Charles Osborne arranged a single cross-carrying pilgrimage to the Marian shrine at Walsingham to test the waters.²³ When building on this success, in 1948 he gained parochial and episcopal support to organise a much larger pilgrimage, comparable to that of Vézelay, and recruited the required fourteen groups.²⁴ They departed from towns and cities in England and Wales which were the diocesan seats of large Catholic populations (such as Middlesbrough), home to thriving Catholic parishes (Glossop or Birkenhead), or where Osborne received strong parochial and diocesan support.²⁵ Osborne coordinated the groups by drawing up a timetable and sending instructions on how the pilgrims’ departure ceremony should be conducted.²⁶ He obtained permission from individual bishops to pass through their dioceses, from the Archbishop of Birmingham to approach priests to help with parish promotion,²⁷ and he created a poster for advertising.²⁸ The pilgrimage was advertised in the communities through which it would pass to ensure local support; Eileen Lovas remembered being asked to walk out with her family to meet the Westminster pilgrims a few miles from Brentwood.²⁹ Basic accommodation, on floors or outdoors, both called on the generosity of communities already stretched through post-war shortages and added to the pilgrims’ penitential experience. The pilgrims arrived at Walsingham foot-sore and tired, and in need of medical attention, if they completed the journey at all. They were met there by thousands of supporters, including a large contingent of women ‘day-pilgrims’ whose participation had been organised by the Union of Catholic Mothers; they came by rail and coach from all over England and Wales.³⁰ Perhaps most important in all this organisation, however, was Osborne’s success in securing the public backing of Cardinal Griffin, Archbishop of Westminster (1899—1956). This was significant for post-war reconstruction and reconciliation, as when Griffin had been unexpectedly appointed (despite his youth), the Apostolic Delegate had argued that ‘a young man should be placed at Westminster to grapple with the after-war problems.’³¹ Griffin was receptive to Osborne’s ideas and could capitalise on the wider interest his plans stirred up among the faithful about the role religion had to play in post-war recovery.

Peace, Penance, Reconciliation

The overarching aim of the three pilgrimages was to secure peace, perform collective acts of penance and atonement, and foster reconciliation. Organisers and participants were concerned with maintaining and defending peace after years of war through direct spiritual action. Undertaking pilgrimage for these aims was not new, as various kinds of peace and reconciliation pilgrimages had been widespread in the first half of the century, most notably the women’s National Peacemaker’s Pilgrimage (1926); the ‘pilgrimage of peace’ held by the Germans to areas invaded in the First World War in the same year; the 1929 Crusade of Youth; and the 1934 pilgrimage to Lourdes involving c.80,000 veterans from nineteen countries.³² More specifically, the cross-carrying pilgrimages took place at a time when sizeable statue-carrying pilgrimages were organised as a way of fending off the threat of communism and bringing the faithful closer to God. The Grand Retour, a journey of a statue of Mary across France between 1943 and 1948, toured 12,000 parishes to ‘re-evangelise’ and inspire devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Other post-war pilgrimages were ‘led’ by a statue of Mary, drawing on a long-standing tradition of Marian procession referred to as the peregrinatio Mariae, but specifically depicting her as the Virgin of Fatima to reflect current concerns about peace in Europe.³³ These took place across Europe, often on a diocesan level, and also reached the USA and Canada where a statue was sent on tour in 1947.³⁴

The cross-carrying pilgrimages sought peace at a time when their organisers and participants considered the world was facing particular threats to that peace: atomic attack, danger to the Faith (especially the perceived threat of the Soviet Union), tensions in Palestine, Yugoslavia, and Italy, and the problems of the ‘pretence that real recovery from war is being made.’³⁵ The 1946 pilgrimage was seen as an ‘expression of the union of the Catholics of many nations in a single world-embracing aim.’ One reporter even referred to the fourteen pilgrimage groups heading for Vézelay as a ‘penitential League of Nations’ with the hope it would help maintain peace.³⁶ The contrast of militant language with calls for peace through faith seen here and (as we shall see later) in the military language of the pilgrims themselves, appears contradictory. But it is a sign of what Appleby called the ‘ambivalence of the sacred’, whereby religious faith could as easily promote violence and conflict as peace and reconciliation.³⁷ This is particularly the case for uses of the Virgin Mary, often depicted as a figure of peace and the protector of Christians, but also playing a significant role in conflict as the defeater of the faithful’s enemies.³⁸ This association probably directed Osborne’s choice of Walsingham as his destination in 1947 and 1948 as it was the premier Marian shrine in England and the site of peace pilgrimages before, during, and immediately after the war.³⁹ The Virgin had been popular in wartime as a symbol of peace and protection, while some parts of the Catholic press attributed Allied victory to her assistance.⁴⁰ The pope believed prayers to Mary would help avoid the Third World War warned of in the Third Secret of Fatima in 1917.⁴¹ Mary also became important to the spiritual fight against Communism during the Cold War (itself in its early stages at the time of the cross-carrying pilgrimages) when she came ‘to the fore…as a militant saint…as the warrior against Satan par excellence.’⁴²

There were also broader concerns about the challenge to peace from both communism and the nuclear threat following the use of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. These dangers served to ‘push along’ the papal focus on peace and anti-war that had begun even before then.⁴³ Although the nuclear threat was not specifically mentioned as a motivator by either the organisers or participants in the cross-carrying pilgrimages, the regular references to threats to peace meant it was clearly a concern.⁴⁴ This broader fear reflected the worries expressed by contributors to Britain’s Mass Observation project in Hammersmith and Shrewsbury, that another war was almost inevitable, and it would come sooner rather than later; most of those questioned believed that it would involve the use of atomic weapons.⁴⁵ Nuclear terror was something which exercised the minds of the public but it was not a priority for Cardinal Griffin or his bishops.⁴⁶ Griffin was more concerned about the threat of communism to Catholicism, a fear which had already induced his travel to Poland and to Lourdes to pray for peace.⁴⁷ This may have been a significant factor in his support for the 1948 pilgrimage, as perhaps was the wider view (here expressed by the Foreign Office), that Catholicism was ‘one of the most powerful anti-communist influences’ at the time.⁴⁸ Writing 50 years later, the Catholic Herald noted that the pilgrimage had taken place when:

The Berlin Airlift had just started to relieve Soviet besieged Berlin [and] 60 Super fortress bombers were flying from the United States to RAF stations in Britain, including that at Marham, about 20 miles from Walsingham. The Herald front page on July 9 gave equal prominence to PPP [Pilgrimage of Prayer and Penance] 1948 and an interview with Cardinal Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary, on communist persecution of the Church in his country (which was to develop into his own persecution).⁴⁹

The Soviet blockade of West Berlin, preventing the delivery of food and supplies, had begun in late June 1948.⁵⁰ In response, a relief effort, the Berlin Airlift, was staged by, amongst others, the United States, Britain, and France.⁵¹ Most planes sent from England were transporters, but they were accompanied by bombers crewed by the RAF and by American airmen stationed in England and Germany under the auspices of the newly-created Strategic Air Command.⁵² For Catholics, the Soviet threat exemplified by the blockade was a particular concern because of the perceived danger of communism to everything Catholicism stood for, and the threat of the spread of its militant atheism across Europe.⁵³ This was seen most explicitly in the treatment of Cardinal Mindszenty (1892—1975) whose ‘anticommunism’ was the very reason for his appointment in 1945.⁵⁴ He clashed with the Hungarian Working People’s Party over the treatment of non-communists and the loss of Church lands to its communist aims, leading to his arrest at the end of 1948.⁵⁵

It was against this background that Osborne labelled the 1948 Walsingham event as a ‘Pilgrimage of Peace and Penance’ (though it was also called a ‘Pilgrimage of Prayer and Penance’). An ‘official’ brochure distributed en route explained the pilgrimage was conducted ‘in a spirit of very humble repentance for our sins, and dominated by ardent, constant prayer.’⁵⁶ Pilgrims were keenly aware of these twin aims: Vincent Harrison remembered how he ‘reflected with much contentment that I had personally contributed with prayer and penance for world peace’ by taking part.⁵⁷ Support from Wales, via the women’s day pilgrimage, may have been directly stimulated by these goals, as the Welsh appear to have had a particular interest in promoting peace: the Welsh League of Nations had active branches across the country, and the 1935 Peace Ballot had a 24% higher response in Wales than the British average due in large part to community activism, broader Welsh support for internationalisation, and non-conformist pacificism.⁵⁸ The involvement of an extra contingent from France also underlined the idea of peace across Europe. A group of young Frenchmen brought over the statue of Our Lady of Boulogne to Lowestoft, which had already been processed through France as part of the Grand Retour that began in the summer of 1943.⁵⁹ To underscore their reasons for participating, when the French pilgrims congregated at Walsingham, they sang ‘Sauvez, sauvez la France’ [Save, save France].⁶⁰

Another perceived threat to peace was sin (and its consequences) as a result of which these pilgrimages focused on the need to do penance, a goal aided by the requirement to carry heavy wooden crosses for hundreds of miles. On the Walsingham pilgrimage, the crosses weighed 95lb and were carried by three pilgrims at a time, in shifts, while the others prayed.⁶¹ Devotion and penitence were emphasised in their pilgrim handbook which reminded them of the solemnity of their undertaking, and its importance for peace. Acts of penance were also encouraged among non-participants by Fr Vann, who called for ‘penitence’ in their lives by way of support for the pilgrims.⁶² Such language situated this pilgrimage in a wider European movement of walking as an act of contrition and piety that was noted by the Dominican Fr. Esmond Klimeck (1895—1983), who published an account of his pilgrimage,:

Everywhere in Europe, men are turning to our Lady; and are taking to the road…The idea comes late, if anything, to England. They go in prayer and penance on foot to Fatima in Portugal; to La Salette and Chartres in France; to shrines in Poland and Belgium, in Italy and Germany.⁶³

En route, the Vézelay pilgrims also prayed and expressed ‘reparation for the sins’ which caused, or now threatened to cause, renewed conflict.⁶⁴ For them, there was also a clear desire to engage in an act of reconciliation and to bring together former enemies, though this did not extend to inviting a German contingent of pilgrims to take part.⁶⁵ Despite this, several German prisoners of war from the surrounding region brought a fifteenth cross to Vézelay. It was larger and heavier than the others, allegedly made from the timbers of a bombed-out building.⁶⁶ Whether this was intended to be symbolic of Germany’s weight of guilt is not clear, but it was commented on in a way that suggests it was taken as a sign of German shame. When the pilgrims arrived at Vézelay and processed their crosses, that of ‘defeated Germany was girt about by all the other crosses as if sustained by them’ and one eyewitness referred to the entire enterprise as an ‘astonishing experience of fraternity.’⁶⁷ The German pilgrims were not, however, treated with parity as they were forbidden from carrying their cross into the church; that ‘honour’ instead fell to three members of the British group.⁶⁸ A smaller cross was also made and carried by a German prisoner.

Though the British pilgrims appear to have been open to acts of reconciliation, the same was not true of the French who had of course suffered through the Occupation.⁶⁹ The French later attacked the German cross (on display at Vézelay) ‘in a spirit of revenge’, so it was hidden for protection.⁷⁰ Formally omitting Germans from the pilgrimage was, perhaps, a wasted opportunity. The Catholic Church was one of the few pre-war institutions to survive intact through the war and, being a transnational institution, collaboration among Catholics was a logical route to reconciliation.⁷¹ The language of reconciliation was an interesting choice in the context of post-war reconstruction and relations with Germany. Ulrich Pfeil has argued that it was a word that was rarely used, at least in Franco-German relations, in the decade after the war because the language of reconciliation had failed to stop the rise of Nazis or the outbreak of war.⁷² Yet the pilgrimage was seen as an act and process of reconciliation. Reconciliation is sometimes considered the psychological mirror to peace-making’s more structural side,⁷³ and perhaps a natural sphere for religious expression that made the use of the term particular to this context.

War and Peace: Veteran Identity and Military Language

Although being conceived of as acts of peace, the pilgrimages themselves could be militarised in their language, organisation, and (through the language of combatting threats to the faith), their aims. In part this was due to the referential framing of the pilgrims as so many had been involved in the recent war, and their terms of reference for hardship, marching, or rough accommodation and plain food were easily likened to their military service. But the militarized language of their efforts to both bring peace, atone for sin, and protect the Catholic Church echoed a long tradition of military language in the Church which drew on the New Testament’s ideas of the Church militant and combatting sin. It was most obviously seen in the crusading movement when participants were described as ‘knights of Christ,’ but it was also used to describe the spiritual struggles of the faithful and the trials of the Christian life more broadly.⁷⁴ The pilgrimage to Vézelay was initially presented as a non-military crusade, a ‘crusade of prayer for penance and an act of reparation to God for the world’s infidelity.⁷⁵ However, militant crusading imagery permeated promotional material: a commemorative stamp depicted pilgrims before the Cistercian leader St Bernard (d. 1153), preacher of the Second Crusade, at Vézelay (1146); a postcard showed medieval crusaders to Jerusalem; and a report in the French newspaper L’Aurore called pilgrims ‘modern knights’ in fighting for faith.⁷⁶ Vézelay pilgrims wore a ‘crusader’s cross’ and the English contingent was preceded by the flag of St George ‘flown as it was by the crusaders of old.’⁷⁷ These crusading references were also intensified by the fact that 1946 was the 800^th anniversary of St Bernard’s preaching at Vézelay: in celebration, a pageant depicting the history of the crusades was staged when the pilgrims reached Vézelay.⁷⁸

Coming so soon after the end of the war, it is little surprise that many of the pilgrims were veterans. General Juin (1888-1967) commander of the French forces in the Italian campaign, took part in the Vézelay pilgrimage in his capacity as Chief of French Defence Staff, and former deportees, slave labourers, and prisoners of war came ‘to give thanks for their deliverance after years of almost hopeless confinement’.⁷⁹ The veteran identities of the Walsingham pilgrims were also pronounced. Most had served in the forces during the war and had only recently been demobilised. Geoffrey Lynch (Wrexham) was a member of the RAF Voluntary Reserve, while Peter Hastings (Oxford) served in the Royal Navy. Fr Klimeck noted that all members of his group (Wrexham) were ex-servicemen.⁸⁰ Their status as veterans was repeatedly noted in press coverage and the pilgrims often explained their actions with reference to military service.⁸¹ When a reporter asked why they were taking part, the Scottish leader of one contingent explained: ‘We’re trying to make sure the job we did in the Forces (we’re all ex-Service men) won’t be all washed up.’⁸² This suggests veterans were concerned that the peace they had fought for would break down, largely because of the failure of what they called the ‘big noises’. Another pilgrim suggested it was almost a continuation of their war service:

So WHY did we feel the need to walk for two weeks, winding around the English countryside, laden with gear and cross and setting it up wherever we stopped? Probably a majority were ex-servicemen like me, demobilised less than a year. The Russian threat loomed large; it seemed that hardly out of uniform, we might soon be back in.⁸³

Some pilgrims were fulfilling vows made as a consequence of the war, or to address the legacy of conflict.⁸⁴ The English contingent to Vézelay incorporated prayers for the war dead at roadside memorials into their activities, perhaps because of the lack of post-war pilgrimages to battlefields or cemeteries, as there had been after 1918.⁸⁵ Such activities reflected wider ‘collective mourning’ initiatives, whereby religious groups brought together those who had suffered during the war as a way to address their common grief.⁸⁶ Other motives were individual. Alfred Hall, a member of the Westminster station in 1948, went to pray for a reunion with his wife and child who were then in Russia, refused permission to leave by the Kremlin.⁸⁷ One unnamed member of the Middlesbrough group was giving thanks for a cure received at Lourdes for a spinal injury sustained during the war.⁸⁸ The naval reservist Peter Hastings’ (1922—2012) reasons for participating were not recorded, but his obituary of 2012 claimed he dropped out of university in 1946 ‘to recover from his war experience, hitch-hiking around Europe,’ so his participation could have been a continuation of his attempts to come to terms with his naval service.⁸⁹

The language and actions of the pilgrims drew heavily on their recent military experiences. The Vézelay pilgrims had an unnamed ex-paratrooper as leader ‘responsible for their march discipline’, and the food they took with them was referred to as the ‘iron ration,’ a nickname for soldier’s ration issue from the First World War.⁹⁰ At Vézelay, they climbed to the Bois de la Madeleine and looked down on the church: having ascended in silence, one member of the English contingent commented: ‘It’s like going into action.’⁹¹ When the groups from East Grinstead and Basingstoke converged at Ballingdon Bridge they were met by trumpeters from the 4^th Hussars, stationed at nearby Colchester, who sounded a fanfare in honour of the Cross.⁹² Fr Klimeck claimed the pilgrims in his group (from Wrexham) looked to him ‘for example and inspiration in the spiritual adventure as they would to an officer in a military operation’, perhaps because he had served as a military chaplain.⁹³ Many pilgrims still looked like soldiers too: in 1946 they wore the uniform of the prisoner of war, the green of Canadian forces, and a mixture of ‘battledress of every type.’⁹⁴ This was not uncommon, as for many people it was their only suitable clothing (not least because clothes rationing did not end until 1949), but it nonetheless reminded pilgrims and observers of their common status as veterans.

The language and structures of war also spilled over into the organisation of the pilgrimages. According to French reports, when they gathered in Vézelay the number of pilgrims was so vast that the ‘army of peaceful crusaders’ had to be subject to ‘military organisation’ so that they could be accommodated and fed. Coordination was established in a ‘command post, set up under a tent of the American army, [who] had a campaign telephone,’ and German prisoners of war were pressed into providing mass catering.⁹⁵ Similar militarised language was used about the Walsingham pilgrims in 1947, who walked ‘like a victorious army with firm and joyous step.’⁹⁶ One pilgrim recalled how the journey to Walsingham was ‘a physically tougher, more unremitting 14 days than anything I’d done in the army’, as they ‘bore a heavy wooden cross, which was carried in turns by teams of three. Army-style, we marched in threes and the teams relieved from the cross went to the rear rank.’⁹⁷

Military experience was considered particularly useful for the pilgrims because they were already ‘inured to hardships and shortages’ and ‘had experience of long periods of marching.’⁹⁸ One hopeful volunteer for the Vézelay pilgrimage recommended himself as an ‘ex-Scots guardsman…[who had] done many a route march, but never with such a good objective.’⁹⁹ Even then, the distances covered could be wearying. The veteran Fr Klimeck complained that ‘Thirty miles a day is a forced march even by trained soldiers.’¹⁰⁰ His age and experience were to his benefit though, as periods marching in the New Zealand Territorial Army both before and during the First World War had taught him the importance of the right kind of boots.¹⁰¹ This stoic approach to the pilgrimage reflected a wider mood of the time of ‘postwar moral rearmament’, at a time where Christian culture in Britain emphasised duty and ‘moral austerity.’¹⁰²

Their status as veterans was considered by Fr. Klimeck an important part of his particular group’s identity and something which should be made known to curious onlookers to help explain and justify their actions.¹⁰³ This was particularly the case where pilgrims met with criticism or mockery; they explained that they had already endured military service, and found this pilgrimage a hardship but an important one ‘for the sake of peace,’ and in doing so won sceptics to their point of view.¹⁰⁴ At one stop, a man in a pub asked them why they were on such a pilgrimage, and Fr. Klimeck explained: ‘If we really believe we were fighting for Christian principles in the last war – we said so often enough – Christian justice, freedom, truth and peace, shouldn’t we be prepared to live by them now?’¹⁰⁵ The Winsford Chronicle printed a short account that summed up the view many had of the military-religious identity of the pilgrims: ‘They are the Commandos of Christ: the shock-troops of the modern church.’¹⁰⁶

Catholicism in Post-War Britain

In the wake of the Second World War, criticism of the role the Catholic Church had played in supporting Nazi aims was widespread. Consequently, the Vézelay pilgrimage contributed to the Church’s ‘cleansing strategy’, something particularly important in France where Catholics were criticised for their support for the Vichy regime.¹⁰⁷ In Britain, the pilgrimages fulfilled a similar, if less explicit, role. During the early years of the war, the Catholic Hierarchy in Britain had been cautious about expressing views, supporting the five peace points advanced by the pope (in which they were supported by Britain’s Anglican leaders). They had also been concerned to demonstrate loyalty to avoid accusations that they were a potential ‘Fifth Column’ for the enemy, a fear inspired in part by their support for fascism in the decade before the war.¹⁰⁸ With the end of the war, large-scale pilgrimages presented British Catholics with a way to demonstrate their faith but also their dedication to peace, their desire to repent, and their wish to reconcile. These were hardly aims anyone could object to. Moreover, though clearly Catholic events, long-distance walking as a form of protest appealed across the confessional divide, and peace pilgrimages were an idea readily acceptable to Catholic and non-Catholics alike.¹⁰⁹

The pilgrimages also reflect the respective support for Catholicism in France and England in the mid-1940s, and tell us something about the attitudes of the general public to Catholics. The reception that the Vézelay and Walsingham pilgrims received varied. In France, there was a warm welcome for the pilgrims, and the English contingent enjoyed ‘amazing hospitality.’¹¹⁰ They were marching through a landscape which was generally more Catholic, and so found wayside shrines and welcoming committees of their co-religionists as they travelled. In some places, velvet-clad plinths awaited the arrival of their crosses, and parishioners would ‘vie for the honour of being cross-bearers.’¹¹¹ Comparing their experiences in France in 1946 to those in England the following year, the pilgrims lamented how they missed the warm welcome on the road, and as a result, more often walked alone and sang fewer hymns. In other places, they found curiosity or indifference, or cautious uncertainty.¹¹² In predominantly Anglican England, the reception could be unwelcoming. One parish priest believed that the pilgrimage ‘did more harm than good,’ though quite how is not clear.¹¹³ On the whole, however, the response was very good. Catholics turned out in large numbers to pray when the cross approached. At Peterborough, contributions towards hospitality were received from non-Catholic voluntary bodies and the local authorities, and their celebration of mass in front of the cathedral met with no objection. Indeed, the cathedral’s Church of England Chancellor Canon E. C. Rich watched, and ‘stated that he was in sympathy with what the pilgrims intended to do.’¹¹⁴ The widespread press coverage of the 1948 pilgrimage, not least through the BBC and the Vatican Radio Station, and the subsequent tour of a short film of the pilgrims, ‘Crucifiers to Walsingham’ conducted by one of the participants, was seen as indicative of the ‘wonderful change’ in the country towards Catholics in England.¹¹⁵

Despite these differences, the Walsingham pilgrimages were a sign of confidence in the post-war Catholic community. The 1948 pilgrimage culminated in a large celebration at Walsingham, attended by thousands of other pilgrims and coordinated to dramatic effect. Cardinal Griffin took part, reflecting Church approval for the pilgrimage. He celebrated mass and chose the event to dedicate England to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception. This act was an important indication of Catholic unity in Britain and harked back to the country’s Catholic past when England had been designated Our Lady’s Dowry. It marked a ‘new blossoming of the Catholic spirit’,¹¹⁶ and associated England both with the 1917 messages of Fatima where the Virgin told Lucia that Jesus wanted ‘to establish in the world the devotion to my Immaculate Heart,’ and with the pope’s 1942 Christmas message.¹¹⁷ The acts of the cross-carrying pilgrims responded to the messages of both Fatima and the pope’s Christmas address: committing Catholics to the care of Mary, uniting Catholics against external threats, and encouraging peace amongst them.

Another facet of this confidence was the renewed emphasis on conversion. According to one of its priest-pilgrims, the 1948 pilgrimage to Walsingham was also working ‘for the conversion of everyone in England by prayer, penitence, pilgrimage and love.’¹¹⁸ This was not a widely stated aim, but the intention fit with wider post-war efforts at conversion. These efforts could be seen in the reanimation of the Catholic Missionary Society by its new superior John Carmel Heenan (1905—1975) in June 1947, and the decision of the English bishops in October 1948 for Catholics to make ‘a sustained public profession of their Faith’, to pray for peace, and conversion.¹¹⁹ There was also speculation among non-Catholics that the Walsingham pilgrimages were intended to ‘evangelise lapsed Catholics’ rather than anything to do with peace as was widely claimed.¹²⁰ Certainly several of the Walsingham pilgrims were Catholic converts, including Osborne himself, and some of their enthusiasm could have come from a desire to inspire faith in others.¹²¹ Others saw it as a more general atonement for various sins, such as Rev. Canon A. P. Henry, who told the Courier and Guardian that the pilgrims were working for ‘the reparation to God for the wide-spread gross materialism of today.’¹²²

Unsurprisingly, none of the pilgrimages were effective in achieving the aims of bringing world peace, but they did have an enduring legacy.¹²³ In 2003, Fr. Jimmy Collin recalled that the 1948 pilgrimage ‘was an inspiration for the whole country, and its effects have been lasting.’¹²⁴ The cross-carrying pilgrimages to and from England created a sense of unity, a community, among those who took part, something which was arguably of greater importance for Catholics in England. The recreation of the community forged during wartime has often been observed in the secular pilgrimages which took place after the First World War to battlefields and military cemeteries because these acts brought men together again,¹²⁵ but for the Catholics who took part, they were also about the unity of a community of the faithful. As Fr Columba Ryan OP put it:

Men who might never think of making a retreat, men whose Catholic lives were led in the isolation of the average English parish (but who have learned something of the excellence of community life during the war)…would find an opportunity of living, learning, suffering a little, together under the presidency of the cross.¹²⁶

The Walsingham pilgrimage, though insular compared to that to Vézelay, also brought together representatives from Europe in an act of peace: in addition to the contingent of students from France and a few foreign pilgrims, when the groups reached Walsingham they were joined by priests from America, France, and Italy.¹²⁷

Other cross-carrying pilgrimages were organised by Osborne, who was inspired to continue participating in them in Europe and North America. In 1949, he established the Jerusalem Cross pilgrimage which set out from a Palestinian refugee camp and travelled through Europe and America to collect funds for the refugees.¹²⁸ He also organised the Pax Christi pilgrimages to Walsingham to encourage international contact between Catholics, and participated in the Jerusalem Cross pilgrimage to Fatima in 1950.¹²⁹ Other participants also organised or took part in pilgrimages, some of them involving cross-carrying, over the following years, as an act of reparation.¹³⁰ The cross-carrying pilgrimage to Walsingham, drawing together fourteen separate contingents as it did in 1948, was however never repeated, despite the suggestion made by Osborne that a pilgrimage of ‘English Speaking Peoples’ from across the world, travelling in groups from each English diocese, should be organised for 1949. Though the bishop of Northampton was broadly supportive, he did not back this sort of pilgrimage: ‘the carrying of the crosses should be something exceptional’, he wrote to Osborne, ‘and if done again too soon would tend to cheapen the effort and bring ridicule rather than reverence.’¹³¹

The multi-station Vézelay and Walsingham cross-carrying pilgrimages of 1946-1948 were thus one-offs. In France, pilgrimages with a similar aim — peace, defence from communism, revival of faith —were instead those peregrination Mariae involving the statues of the Virgin of Fatima, while pilgrimages with a military and veteran focus built on earlier traditions at Lourdes where the International Military Pilgrimage was formally established after 1958.¹³² The Student Cross pilgrimage to Walsingham did continue, probably because it was smaller (for many years involving only one party), and drew on a clear group of Catholic students instead of appealing for participants from the wider public. This pilgrimage itself had comparatively little coverage in the press, as ecclesiastical permission for it was only given on the condition that it was not advertised and so was less well-known at first.¹³³ Interestingly, although its original organiser Wilfred Maundcote-Carter was a navy veteran who took part in Osborne’s 1947 pilgrimage, and many of its participants were ex-servicemen, it never appears to have had the military identity that was present in the other pilgrimages.

The cross-carrying pilgrimages to Vézelay and Walsingham between 1946 and 1948 were acts of peace, penance, and reconciliation driven by the faith of their participants, the politics of the mid-1940s, and their recent experiences in war. The pilgrimages were a way to make a contribution to the maintenance of peace, something they had fought for but were concerned was under threat. Many felt that they were uniquely qualified for the hardships of a cross-carrying pilgrimage, used to marching and sleeping rough, with few rations and sore feet. The bonds forged by the pilgrim groups also echoed the fellowship many had found in war service, and they appeared sad to give that up: various expressions of loss at giving up their crosses when they reached their final destinations were no doubt as much about religious devotion as the end of the comradeship of the road for men used to serving together in war.