Timothy Egan at Bellingham High School

During a time when America, and much of Europe are increasingly secular, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author, Timothy Egan set out to reckon with his own beliefs. Prompted by his Irish Catholic family’s complicated history with the church and in the wake of his mother’s death, Egan decided to follow in the footsteps of centuries of seekers.
A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith traces his deeply personal, modern pilgrimage through a European dreamscape—the 1,000-mile-long Via Francigena. On his journey, Egan charts the history of Western Christianity by visiting the people and places that shaped the religion, all the while exploring one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created.