Spring 2025 Pilgrimages
The Chaplaincy led two spring pilgrimages in 2025 to explore peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the ancient roots of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism in Greece. Both teams included a half unit pass/fail course taught during the spring semester.
Craig Kocher, dean of religious and spiritual life and university chaplain, and Tom Mullen, Catholic chaplain and senior teaching faculty in journalism, led the pilgrimage to Northern Ireland over spring break. The pilgrimage team explored the period between the 1960s and the late 1990s called The Troubles, a time of deep political and religious violence between British Protestants and Irish Catholics, that was ultimately stabilized through the Good Friday Accords signed in 1998.
The theme of the pilgrimage was peace-making, and team members wrestled with deep questions of how best to navigate profound conflict and create opportunities for resolution and peace-making at a societal level and within close relationships. The team included students from Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist backgrounds, drawing on all these traditions as sources of wisdom and understanding.
The team also explored differences and similarities between the Northern Ireland context and the profound divisions infecting the cultural, political, and religious landscape of the United States, and discussed various ways to advance peace-making and reconciliation within the United States and in our local communities.
Pilgrimage: Greece was led by Waleed Ilyas, Muslim chaplain, Josh Jeffreys, Jewish chaplain and director of religious life, and Olivia Rosenblum, Multifaith program manager.
The team included students from Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and SBNR (spiritual but not religious backgrounds). The pilgrimage explored themes of sacred myth and holy spaces, tracing the evolution of Greece as the often called “cradle of western civilization.”
The team also explored the prominence of early Christianity and the birth of the Greek Orthodox Church, the long history of Jewish communities in Greece, and thriving Muslim communities under the Ottoman Empire. And the team wrestled with the complicated political, religious, and cultural story of ancient and modern Greece and how that story continues to impact the world today.
The two pilgrimages highlight the Chaplaincy’s commitment to spiritual formation, engaging significant social and ethical issues, and learning from those of different sacred paths around the world.