A Choir Pilgrimage to Italy

Pilgrims gather at Miami International Airport (MIA) for the evening departure to Rome on Air France, connecting through Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG). International airfare is quoted separately from the land package; see the Group Flight Information section below for the full confirmed schedule. Buon viaggio!

The group arrives (time to be determined) at Rome Fiumicino (FCO), where a ProRome representative meets the pilgrims. A private motorcoach transfers the group to CIAM (Centro Internazionale di Animazione Missionaria) on the Janiculum Hill, overlooking St. Peter’s Square, for check-in. The evening closes with a Welcome Dinner at a nearby trattoria, a first taste of Rome before the pilgrimage begins in earnest the following morning. Buon viaggio!

Please note: CIAM is our intended accommodation and is pending availability; if it cannot be secured, ProRome will source a comparable religious guesthouse within walking distance of the Vatican.

After breakfast at the guesthouse, the group walks down to St. Peter’s Square for the Papal General Audience with the Holy Father, joining pilgrims from every nation in the heart of the Universal Church. Following the audience we enjoy a group lunch in the Borgo, then enter St. Peter’s Basilica for a guided pilgrimage tour: Michelangelo’s Pietà, the Confessio above the tomb of St. Peter, the Altar of the Chair, and the Tombs of the Popes in the Vatican Grottoes, including the tomb of St. John Paul II. At 5:00 PM the group gathers for a Sung Mass at the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter, with the parish chaplain concelebrating and the pilgrim choir singing.

Please note: Papal Audience tickets are confirmed approximately 4–6 weeks prior and are subject to change at the discretion of the Holy See. The Chair Altar requires advance reservation through the Office of Liturgical Celebrations of the Holy Father, which occasionally requests that a choir sing on a different day of the itinerary.

After breakfast at the guesthouse, the group walks to the Vatican Museums for a morning guided visit: the Belvedere Courtyard, the Gallery of Maps, the Raphael Rooms, and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, concluding with a passage into St. Peter’s Basilica. We then cross the Tiber on foot along Via dei Coronari, the antique-dealers’ street that retraces the medieval pilgrim route to St. Peter’s, for a free lunch in the heart of the centro storico. The afternoon walking pilgrimage continues through the Pantheon (Basilica of Santa Maria ad Martyres), Piazza Navona, San Luigi dei Francesi (home to Caravaggio’s three paintings of the life of St. Matthew), and Sant’Agostino (Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto and the tomb of St. Monica). The group convenes for a group dinner near the Chiesa Nuova, the church of St. Philip Neri, before returning to the guesthouse. Mass is celebrated at one of the churches visited during the day.

After breakfast, the motorcoach takes the group to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where the Ave Maria Parish Choir will sing at Mass beneath the venerated Byzantine icon of the Salus Populi Romani, the most ancient and beloved image of Our Lady in Rome. After Mass, pilgrims venerate the relics of the manger of Bethlehem in the Crypt of the Nativity and pray at the tomb of Pope St. Pius V. We continue to the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome and “mother and head of all churches in the city and the world”, whose papal altar enshrines the wooden table on which St. Peter is said to have celebrated Mass. Lunch on your own in the Lateran neighborhood. The afternoon continues across the piazza at the Scala Santa (Holy Stairs), brought from Jerusalem by St. Helena and traditionally climbed on the knees, and concludes at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, home to the relics of the True Cross that St. Helena brought back from the Holy Land.

Pending confirmation, there is the possibility of singing at a Mass in the Traditional Roman Rite at the Church of Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini, the personal parish of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) in Rome, founded as a confraternity for the care of pilgrims by St. Philip Neri in 1548 and entrusted to the FSSP by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008, and today one of the most important centers of the traditional liturgy in the Eternal City. Following Mass, the group joins a walking pilgrimage through the jewels of Counter-Reformation Rome: the Gesù (mother church of the Society of Jesus and tomb of St. Ignatius of Loyola), Sant’Ignazio (with its astonishing trompe-l’œil dome by Andrea Pozzo), and Sant’Andrea delle Fratte, where the Blessed Virgin appeared to the Jewish convert Alphonse Ratisbonne in 1842 (the “Miraculous Medal” apparition) and where St. Maximilian Kolbe celebrated his first Mass on April 29, 1918. The morning concludes at the Trevi Fountain. In the afternoon, the group visits the Basilica of San Paolo Fuori le Mura (St. Paul Outside the Walls), the second of Rome’s four major papal basilicas, built over the tomb of the Apostle Paul. The group gathers for dinner afterward.

Please note: a sung Traditional Latin Mass with the choir at Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini requires coordination with the FSSP rectory; ProRome will request this slot upon contract.

After breakfast and check-out from the Rome guesthouse, the group departs Rome by private motorcoach for Orvieto, perched on its volcanic tuff cliffs. We ascend to the Duomo di Orvieto, where the Chapel of the Corporal preserves the bloodstained altar cloth of the Eucharistic Miracle of Bolsena (1263), the miracle that gave rise to the Feast of Corpus Christi. Mass at the Duomo and lunch on your own in town. The motorcoach then continues to Assisi. Before ascending to the upper town, we stop in the valley below at the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, home to the Portiuncula, the tiny chapel St. Francis rebuilt with his own hands and the cradle of the Franciscan Order, and the Cappella del Transito, where the saint died on October 3, 1226. The group then proceeds up to the group’s religious guesthouse for check-in.

The day is given entirely to the Franciscan sites of the upper town. After breakfast at the guesthouse, the group walks to the Basilica of San Francesco for a guided visit of the Upper and Lower Basilicas and the Tomb of St. Francis in the crypt. The Ave Maria Parish Choir will sing at Mass in the Lower Basilica, beneath the Giotto and Cimabue frescoes and in proximity to the tomb of the Poverello, a moment many pilgrims describe as the spiritual high point of any Franciscan pilgrimage. After lunch on your own, the group visits San Damiano, where the crucifix spoke to St. Francis, and the Basilica of St. Clare, home to that very crucifix and the tomb of St. Clare.

The day begins with a final Mass in Assisi after breakfast and check-out. The group then transfers by private motorcoach to Rome Fiumicino (FCO) for the early-afternoon return flights to Miami (MIA) via Paris, on Air France. We carry home the memory of the churches where we sang and prayed together.