The National Catholic Register (May 12, 2026) publishes a commentary by Zelda Caldwell recounting her five-day journey along the Camino Inglés from Ferrol to Santiago de Santiago de Compostela. She describes the experience as spiritually enriching, marked by daily Mass celebrated by Father David Dufresne, communal prayer, confession, and the reception of a Compostela certificate. Yet beneath the veneer of Catholic piety lies a profoundly troubling omission: the entire narrative unfolds within the framework of the post-conciliar Church—a structure that has abandoned the supernatural mission of the true Church and replaced it with sentimental humanism, horizontal community-building, and ritualistic tourism masquerading as sanctity. This is not a pilgrimage of faith; it is a spiritualized hiking trip through the ruins of Catholic Christendom, orchestrated by men who serve an antipope and celebrate a rite stripped of its sacrificial essence.
The Illusion of Pilgrimage Without the Supernatural
Caldwell’s account begins with a confession that should alarm any Catholic grounded in Tradition: she was first drawn to the Camino not through Scripture, the lives of the saints, or the teaching of the Church, but through a novel by David Lodge—a secular British author whose work is hardly orthodox. That such a source could plant a “seed” leading to her conversion reveals the shallow soil in which modern Catholicism grows. True conversion arises from grace mediated through the sacraments, preaching of the Gospel, and the example of the saints—not from literary fiction romanticizing existential crisis.
Her fear of undertaking the Camino “without a group of Catholics—and ideally a Catholic priest” betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes a pilgrimage. In the authentic Catholic tradition, a pilgrimage is an act of penance, reparation, and supplication undertaken for the glory of God and the salvation of one’s soul. It is not contingent upon the presence of a cleric or a social group. The medieval pilgrim walked alone if necessary, sustained by the sacraments received before departure and the knowledge that every step was offered to God. Caldwell’s anxiety reflects the post-conciliar obsession with community experience over individual sanctification—a hallmark of the conciliar Church’s anthropocentric turn.
The “Priest” and the Sacraments of the Conciliar Sect
Central to Caldwell’s narrative is Father David Dufresne, described as “parochial vicar at St. Charles Borromeo Church in the Diocese of Arlington.” But let us be precise: this man is not a priest of the Catholic Church. He is a functionary of the conciar sect, ordained under the revised rites of Paul VI (the antipope Montini), which the Church has long suspected of invalidity due to their deliberate obscuring of the sacrificial nature of Holy Orders. Even setting aside the question of validity, Dufresne operates within a diocese loyal to Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), the current usurper on Peter’s throne, whose teachings and governance are saturated with modernist heresy.
When Caldwell writes that “Father David would celebrate Mass at a church in the town where we were staying,” she refers not to the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—the unbloody renewal of Calvary—but to the Novus Ordo Missae, a Protestantized assembly centered on the community rather than on God. This rite, condemned implicitly by Pope Pius XII in *Mediator Dei* and explicitly rejected by Catholics faithful to Tradition, cannot offer propitiatory sacrifice, cannot confect the Eucharist with certainty, and cannot sanctify souls as the Traditional Latin Mass does. To speak of “Mass” in this context is to profane the term.
Similarly, her confession before reaching Santiago was heard by a man whose faculties derive from a modernist hierarchy in schism from the true Church. Absolution granted by such a man is at best doubtful, at worst sacrilegious. The penance assigned—“one Our Father at the tomb of St. James”—is itself a telling reduction of sacramental theology to folk piety, indistinguishable from superstition.
The Compostela: A Certificate of Spiritual Bankruptcy
Caldwell proudly displays her Compostela, certifying that “Griseldem Caldwell” completed the pilgrimage “as an act of devotion.” But devotion to what? Not to the Social Kingship of Christ, which Pius XI proclaimed in *Quas Primas* as binding upon all nations and individuals. Not to the necessity of belonging to the one true Church outside of which there is no salvation (*Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus*). Not to the condemnation of religious liberty, false ecumenism, and secularism as taught by Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X.
Instead, her devotion is directed toward a statue of St. James—whom she awkwardly “hugs” like a “loved one hunched over his laptop.” This is not veneration; it is sentimentality bordering on idolatry. The true Catholic venerates relics and images as windows to the heavenly reality they represent, not as objects of emotional attachment. The Compostela itself, issued by the Cathedral of Santiago—a see long since captured by the conciar apparatus—is a bureaucratic token of participation in a globalized spiritual marketplace, not a sign of merit before God.
The Camino as Microcosm of Conciliar Apostasy
Every element of Caldwell’s journey mirrors the errors condemned in *Lamentabili Sane Exitu* and *Pascendi Dominici Gregis*. Her emphasis on “being the pilgrim you want to encounter”—inviting, listening, generous, jovial—echoes the modernist reduction of religion to subjective experience and interpersonal ethics. There is no mention of mortal sin, of the necessity of contrition, of the Four Last Things, of the reality of Hell. The “baggage” she leaves at the tomb is psychological, not spiritual.
The communal dinners, the sharing of snacks and blister pads, the beach picnics—these are not acts of fraternal charity ordered toward God, but expressions of horizontal solidarity devoid of supernatural purpose. As St. Pius X warned, “The primary duty of the Church is to lead souls to God, not to organize social gatherings.” The Camino, as experienced by Caldwell, is a retreat into the self under the guise of seeking the sacred.
Even the landscape is sanitized: “cool, sparkling, sunny days,” “lush, green countryside,” “flowering trees.” Where is the austerity of the desert fathers? Where is the penitential rigor of St. Francis or St. Ignatius? The medieval pilgrim walked in sackcloth, fasting, weeping for his sins. Caldwell walks in lightweight hiking gear, trained by trips to Georgetown for smoothie bowls.
The Silence That Condemns
Most damning is what Caldwell does not say. She makes no reference to the crisis in the Church. No mention of the antipopes, the invalidity of the new rites, the loss of faith among the baptized. No acknowledgment that the dioceses, parishes, and cathedrals she visits are part of a structure that has repudiated the Syllabus of Errors, embraced religious liberty at Vatican II, and entered into dialogue with false religions. She treats the conciar Church as if it were the Catholic Church—precisely the illusion that enables its destructive work.
Pius XI declared in *Quas Primas*: “The Kingdom of our Redeemer encompasses all men… He is the author of prosperity and true happiness for individual citizens as well as for the state.” Yet Caldwell’s pilgrimage makes no connection between her journey and the duty to restore Christ’s reign over society. It is purely private, purely personal—exactly the kind of privatized faith that the modernists promote to neutralize the Church’s prophetic mission.
Conclusion: A Way That Leads Nowhere
The Camino de Santiago, once a path of penance leading to the tomb of an apostle, has become in our time a symbol of the Church’s surrender to the world. Zelda Caldwell’s account is not a testimony of faith but a case study in spiritual delusion. She walks 73 miles, prays, confesses, receives a certificate—and remains in communion with the very system that has emptied Catholicism of its divine content.
True pilgrimage requires truth. And the truth is this: there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church, no valid sacraments outside her true hierarchy, no authentic worship outside the Traditional Latin Mass. Until these realities are acknowledged, every step on the Camino is a step further into the desert of apostasy.
As Our Lord warned: “Not everyone who saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 7:21). Zelda Caldwell calls upon St. James as her intercessor—but she does not call upon Christ the King as her sovereign. And without that submission, no pilgrimage, however arduous, however joyful, however well-stamped, will lead to eternal life.
Source:
My Camino: I Spent 5 Days in Prayer and Reflection (ncregister.com)
Date: 12.05.2026