More than 1,000 teens – a record crowd – attend first event led by Bishop Martin
BELMONT — Bishop Michael Martin encouraged a record crowd at the 2025 Diocese of Charlotte’s Bishop’s Youth Pilgrimage to respond to Jesus with hope.
The Bishop’s Youth Pilgrimage brought together more than 1,000 young people on Saturday to Belmont Abbey College for worship, engaging talks, fellowship, live music, food and games. Held each spring for the past 21 years, the event’s theme this year, “Hope Does Not Disappoint,” mirrored the 2025 Jubilee Year of the Church.
It was a theme that Bishop Martin emphasized in his homily to the teens, his first time attending the event since becoming Bishop of Charlotte. He presided over an outdoor morning Mass for the crowd on the sprawling lawn of Belmont Abbey College, with attendees enjoying clear skies and mild temperatures.
Bishop Martin asked the crowd of young people, “If I said, ‘Thank you,’ you all say?”
They replied with a resounding “you’re welcome.” He then asked them what someone would say after a sneeze. “God bless you,” they responded.
He told them that they should respond to Jesus just as enthusiastically – and with hope, not hesitation.
“My prayer is that at each response moment, your voices will be heard, not just by the person sitting next to you but by the people in the back, by the people driving by, and most importantly by the Lord our God. I hope that that’s how we all want to respond,” he said.
“And hope…” he continued, holding his microphone out to the crowd as they responded to complete the theme’s phrase, “never disappoints.”
He repeatedly cheered on the young people using that theme, saying the first part of the phrase with the crowd finishing it.
“The nature of our relationship with our God is call and response,” he explained. “He will do the things He said He will do. You can trust in Him.”
The Bishop’s Youth Pilgrimage, a teen rally that serves as a prelude to the Diocese of Charlotte’s Eucharistic Congress this fall, is organized by the diocese’s Faith Formation Office in partnership with Belmont Abbey College. The college’s 100 volunteer Hintemeyer Scholars assist college and diocesan staff in putting on the event.
The event began early Saturday morning with busloads of teen pilgrims arriving from all across the Charlotte diocese for the day of praise, reflection, fellowship and growth. Some left well before dawn to travel to Belmont.
St. Joseph in Asheboro brought the largest group of young people, 122. Divine Redeemer in Boonville left around 6 a.m. to make the trek, almost two hours away, with more than 80 youth group members.
The young people filled the lawn in front of historic Mary Help of Christians Basilica – a Jubilee Year pilgrimage site – sitting on blankets and folding chairs, donning event T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Hope Does Not Disappoint.”
Kicking off the day’s events, keynote speaker Father Stan Fortuna, who is professed with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal in New York, told the crowd every time he thinks of North Carolina, he can’t help but think of Tropical Storm Helene’s aftermath.
“The hurricane did a lot of crushing,” he said. “The way people think and feel is crushing, people can self-destruct, but Lent gives us a path leading you, me, us, over the triumph of mercy, over all that would crush us or reduce us to something unworthy of our dignity as children of God.”
Father Fortuna spoke about the importance of Lent and the need to continually seek God. Mid-speech, he took out his cellphone, put on a beat and started rapping in his signature Bronx style, about God’s Word.
After the keynote address concluded, Gez Ford, a musical missionary from New Jersey, sang the processional hymn to start Mass. Bishop Martin offered Mass alongside Benedictine Abbot Placid Solari of Belmont Abbey and Father Peter Ascik of the diocese’s Family Life Office, as well as other priests, assisted by seminarians of the diocese.
After Mass, the young people dug into more than 300 pizzas and enjoyed games, fellowship and the opportunity to go to confession with Bishop Martin or one of 10 other priests waiting in quiet spots along the edges of the lawn.
“I really like how they do confessions outside, everybody has a good vibe, and this is a good experience,” said Celina Aguilera, a 15-year-old parishioner from St. James in Hamlet.
“It’s more energetic this year, and Bishop Martin is funny,” said 14-year-old Jasmine Martinez, also from St. James, who met the bishop for the first time at this event.
The young people played spike ball, cornhole and volleyball, occasionally having one of the seminarians or speakers join in.
Besides the pilgrimage experience, the Bishop’s Youth Pilgrimage offers teens a unique opportunity to visit Belmont Abbey College and meet its students.
One of the Hintemeyer Scholars, freshman Maria Martin, said the interaction between the teens and the college community is important. “The students see us as people who love our faith,” she said. “I love being a part of a group that helps to revive the faith in the diocese.”
Attendees also had an opportunity to meet the monks of Belmont Abbey and learn more about the Benedictine way of life and religious vocation.
Middle schoolers from Holy Trinity in Charlotte, Will, Liam, Lily and Lena, were impressed with the beauty and charm of the monastery and college campus, which is nearly 150 years old.
Said Lily, “We have not really ever seen Belmont Abbey and hung out on campus. Having (the youth pilgrimage) here is really cool.”
After a performance by singer Ricky Vasquez, Bishop Martin ended the day’s events by leading the young pilgrims in a Eucharistic Procession that wound through the college campus. He held a monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament with Abbot Placid walking alongside him, processing down the tree-lined Abbey Lane.
“The procession reminded me of those mid-century videos of thousands of pilgrims processing to Our Lady of Fatima,” said Luke Hamlyn, a member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Charlotte. “It was really beautiful seeing the faith practiced by all these numerous souls.”
The Eucharistic Procession ended at the Benedictine monastery’s cemetery. There, Abbot Placid gave more words of encouragement to the young people.
“We had the closing Benediction here in the Abbey cemetery. That might seem a little bit strange, but what is our motto about hope?” he asked the teens, who then shouted back, “does not disappoint.”
“The monks, the bishops, the priests, the Sisters of Mercy, so many people … who built up the Church of North Carolina, sleeping in hope,” he said of all those buried in the cemetery. “That is what we are celebrating, that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, never dies again, and will come again one day to take all His faithful ones with Him.
“That is the foundation of our hope,” he said, noting that thanks to Jesus, “there are no hopeless situations.”
“It is fitting that we join those who have gone before us in our procession, of the hope of the resurrection that has come to us through baptism,” he said.
— Lisa Geraci, Troy C. Hull and Amelia Kudela
