Young adults go on pilgrimage for the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si’

For the Jubilee Year, a cohort of young Catholics walked together through cobblestoned Italian streets, united by their passion for climate action. The group, made up of Maryknoll Young Adult Ambassadors and Catholic Climate Covenant Young Adults, convened in Rome last October for a pilgrimage of hope.

Ray Almanza, who led the trip as a Maryknoll mission educator and promoter, says he wanted the pilgrimage to have its own flavor. “The particular angle that we wanted to give is environmental justice that looks not only at the big needs, but at the forgotten people within those places — people of color and immigrant communities, especially climate refugees.”

The Catholic Climate Covenant, Maryknoll’s partner on the pilgrimage, is a nonprofit organization that offers resources and training for parishes, schools and universities. One of such resources is the Wholemakers curriculum, developed by young adults from the Covenant and Maryknoll, which serves as a roadmap to climate action that integrates scientific data, spirituality and a framework for collective action. 

“The spirit of striving and wanting more is inherent in our Church,” says Diana Marin, the Covenant’s program manager for Young Adult Mobilization. “There’s a sacred potential … a sacred anger,” she says. “We can tap into that, not ignore it, but hold it with clarity, with discernment.”

Listening to the anxieties of young people is key, Marin says. “They see the complexity of these issues and want to figure out their role. We need spaces that can foster young people to pursue the work that God is calling them toward.”

Lauren Pusich walks through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. (Andrea Moreno-Díaz/Vatican City)

To find that space, the pilgrims sought inspiration and connection with nature in the sunny hills of Assisi, hometown of St. Francis.

There, Maryknoll YA Ambassador Luna Stephanie shared pivotal moments of St. Francis’ life and spirituality. For Luna, who serves the impoverished Tenderloin community in San Francisco, the saint models her ministry. “He was a rebel,” she says. “St. Francis articulates my faith and how I live out my values.”

While in Assisi, the group visited the Eremo delle Carceri — the hermitage where Francis and his friars often went on retreat. In the surrounding forest, participants joined in an activity offering rocks, flowers and branches to Pachamama, Mother Earth in the Indigenous Quechua language of South America. Setting out for San Damiano — where St. Francis was called to rebuild the Church — the pilgrims read his “Canticle of the Creatures” and reflected on how to answer that call today.

“I sat in one of the caves and really tried to articulate these things that I believe so deeply in: presence, justice, unity, peace,” says Connor Murray, a Catholic Climate Covenant young adult from Massachusetts. “I have a much better sense now of what those words mean to me.”

In the town of Castel Gandolfo, the pilgrims attended the first day of the Raising Hope Conference with Pope Leo XIV to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Laudato Si’. A melting piece of glacial ice from Greenland was placed on the stage to represent the urgency of climate change.

Maryknoll Young Adult Ambassadors (left to right) Andrés García, Brinkley Johnson, Luna Stephanie and Ogechi Akalegbere pause for a photo in Assisi, where they walked in the footsteps of St. Francis and meditated on his “Canticle of the creatures.” (Andrea Moreno-Díaz/Italy)

Ogechi Akalegbere, a Maryknoll YA ambassador, works as a campus minister at Howard University in Washington, D.C. As the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, she says she’s “keenly aware who’s at the table, who gets invited and who gets listened to.”

For people struggling to meet basic needs, she says, climate change might not seem like an urgent issue. But when she did tenant organizing in Montgomery County, Maryland, she saw a different picture.

“There’s an intersection of housing injustice and environmental injustice,” Akalegbere says. “Data centers in lower-income neighborhoods compound the impact and strain on health factors in communities that are already battling so much.”

At the conference, Pope Leo urged a “return to the heart.”

“The heart is the place where the deepest searching takes place, where the most authentic desires are discovered, where one’s ultimate identity is found, and where decisions are formed,” the pope said. “It is only by returning to the heart that a true ecological conversion can take place.”

For Maryknoll YA Ambassador Andrés García, the heart cannot be discounted. “It’s how God gives me strength,” he says. “That connection with God is what calls me to fight injustice.”

Born in Colombia, García is pursuing a master’s degree in peace and justice at the University of San Diego. As an ambassador, he says, “you have to have joy to bring the message to others. Maryknoll has given us examples of priests, sisters and lay people who motivate us as young adults to change the world.”

Brinkley Johnson, another YA ambassador, says, “There’s a deep need for repair and healing.”

During the pilgrimage, the young adults attended the Raising Hope Conference with Pope Leo XIV on the climate change crisis. Top row from left to right: Sarahi Unzueta, Connor Murray, Ray Almanza, Brinkley Johnson, Diana Marin, Luna Stephanie, Kathleen O’Brien, Lauren Pusich, Jesús “Paco” Estrada, Ogechi Akalegbere. Front row, kneeling: Amanda Judah, Kayla Jacobs, Andrés García. (Andrea Moreno-Díaz/Italy)

Johnson, who is studying for a master’s degree in restorative justice at the University of San Diego, volunteered for two years at Annunciation House, a network of migrant shelters in El Paso, Texas.

“More migration will occur if we don’t address the root causes,” she says, “and respond in humane and dignifying ways with our best creativity and hope.”

In 2025, García and Johnson received a Laudato Si’ Award from the Diocese of San Diego for their ecological work with young adults.

Back in Rome, the pilgrims walked through the Holy Door of the Basilica of St. Mary Major to visit the resting place of one of their heroes: Pope Francis. Kneeling in front of his tomb, they tearfully mourned the pope who had referred to the young as “the very embodiment of hope.”

“Pope Francis always championed the voices of young people,” says Jesús “Paco” Estrada, a Catholic Climate Covenant young adult from Los Angeles. “Young people are the leaders of today, not tomorrow. We are here to take action in the present.”

Meet the young pilgrims:

The group attended a papal audience and passed through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. The next day, they attended the Mass for the Jubilee of Missions and Migrants, joining “the larger community of pilgrims traveling from around the world to show solidarity for migrants, for the poor, for creation,” Luna says.

The pilgrimage culminated with the music of international performers at the Festival of Peoples in the Gardens of Castel Sant’Angelo.

Ray Almanza, who now serves with his family in Bolivia with Maryknoll Lay Missioners, says he has witnessed the transformative power of many such encounters.

“I see people on these trips not knowing what to expect,” he says. “They’re unsure; they’re strangers.” Through the shared experiences of an immersion trip, he says, they become a community. “They’re on fire when they return,” he adds.

“There’s really no substitute for bringing them to the well and having them drink from that well,” Almanza says. “Their faith is nourished. They return home with their sense of mission alive.”

Featured Image: Maryknoll’s young adult ambassadors joined with Catholic Climate Covenant young adults for a Jubilee pilgrimage to Italy last fall commemorating the 10th anniversary of the encyclical Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home. (Andrea Moreno-Díaz/Italy)