PROSPECT HEIGHTS — Building on the success of the Diocese of Brooklyn’s inaugural Lenten Pilgrimage last year, DeSales Media Group has developed a new app that will give Catholics the chance to go on this year’s spiritual journey virtually.
The app, called Lenten Pilgrimage, is available free of charge at the Apple Store and Google Play. DeSales Media Group, the ministry that produces The Tablet, made sure it was unveiled before the start of the pilgrimage on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 14.
The Lenten Pilgrimage is a program the diocese introduced in 2023 in which Catholics are encouraged to visit a different church each day during Lent so that they can grow closer to their faith and get to know the churches of Brooklyn and Queens.
Last year, 42 churches volunteered to become stops along the pilgrimage and more than 10,000 pilgrims took part in the journey.
To make its first-ever pilgrimage more memorable, the diocese printed “passports” that participants could get stamped at each church they visited.
The paper passports — which officials said were a big hit last year — will still be part of the 2024 pilgrimage. The diocese had 45,000 of them printed. But the Lenten Pilgrimage app features a digital passport to allow participants to keep track of their progress on their cellphones.
Catholics can use the app to get a list of participating churches, plan their pilgrimage stops in advance, check off the churches they have visited, and set Lenten goals for themselves.
Len Camporeale, director of marketing and digital for DeSales Media Group, said he is hoping that at least 5,000 people download the app this Lenten season.
“There is value in downloading the app,” he said, adding that having an app in this day and age makes perfect sense. “Most people live in a digital community,” he explained.
There is one feature of the app that the diocese and DeSales Media Group are particularly excited about — the prayer tab. Catholics can click on the tab to request prayers and to pray for others.
Participants can create a username and then submit their prayer request, which will appear on the app.
In a larger sense, the tab creates a prayer community that anyone in the world can join.
Father Joseph Gibino, vicar for evangelization and catechesis for the diocese, called the development of the app and its potential global reach thrilling.
“It’s really exciting to think that not only will we be able to communicate with the people of the Diocese of Brooklyn, but since we are a diocese of immigrants and so international, that the international community can become part of our pilgrimage here,” he said.
“It is such an exciting concept that we, as a diocese of immigrants, are going digitally and have the potential of going globally,” Father Gibino added.
There are 39 parishes taking part in this year’s pilgrimage. The journey began at the Cathedral Basilica of St. James in Downtown Brooklyn and will conclude at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph in Prospect Heights.
The diocese is dedicating the pilgrimage this year to Sister Mary Ann Ambrose, CSJ, whose participation in last year’s pilgrimage — when she visited every church — was an inspiration to her fellow Catholics, Father Gibino said.
“She was a driving force last year, making every one of the pilgrimage sites. She drove other pilgrims to churches. She talked about it and she wrote about it. She became one of the human faces of the pilgrimage,” he added.