The Society of Servant Pilgrims is a Catholic Association of the Faithful (Canon Law 298), founded in the Archdiocese of Denver in 2016 in the category of New Evangelization. It is a community committed to serving God and humanity through spiritual pilgrimage, walking in the traditional style—on foot, toward a specific destination, often following the footsteps of a saint or journeying to a shrine.

By traveling village to village, Servant Pilgrims encounter people where they live, actively building trust among strangers—the foundation of peace. The Society encourages, supports, and engages people in spiritual pilgrimage worldwide, whether as solo pilgrims, deepening personal encounters, or in small groups, bringing a shared presence into the communities they visit.

The Society identifies three types of pilgrims:

• Mendicant Pilgrims: Life-dedicated pilgrims who embrace full-time, mendicant pilgrimage. Undertaking the pilgrimage without money or other material possessions of value, pilgrims rely on the kindness of strangers to meet their needs.   This practice removes the imbalance of monetary transactions, fosters humility, and allows for a pilgrimage of radical trust and spiritual freedom.  Currently, Ann Sieben, a founding pilgrim, is the only one in this category - truly life-dedicated and truly mendicant.

• Sabbaticant Pilgrims: Those undertaking a personal pilgrimage in the method and with the purpose of the Society for weeks or months before returning to their regular lives. Sabbaticant pilgrims are not obligated to be mendicant nor restricted to any faith tradition.  They are absolutely free to direct their own pilgrimage experience.  There have been many different sabbaticants in the Society and many who have done multiple pilgrimages in various countries.

• Companion Pilgrims: The most numerous, these pilgrims join an experienced Servant Pilgrim on an organized journey lasting from a week to a few months. Unlike tourists, who rely on pre-booked hotels and fixed plans, companions embrace the  flexibility, spontaneity and uncertainty that are important aspects of a transformative pilgrimage.  The organizer takes on the responsibility of finding simple accommodations in real-time. This openness allows for genuine encounters and deeper engagement with the local community.  Companion pilgrims are free to walk independently during the day and to gather in the late afternoon for a shared meal and accommodation for the night.  Many return for multiple pilgrimages. 

A pilgrimage is a spiritual journey to a sacred place.  These words mean different things to different people, so it's necessarily a non-restrictive term, applicable to all faith traditions and cultural backgrounds.  A pilgrimage is personal, but not private.  It's an opportunity to embrace humanity, inviting a transformative experience for everyone.

The Society of Servant Pilgrims follows the tradition of European Christian pilgrimage dating back to Charlemagne, who encouraged and formalized pilgrimage as a valuable endeavor.  His introduction of pilgrim credentials - documents authorizing the pilgrim to journey beyond his own village, ensuring safe passage to a specified destination, and continues to this day.  Servant Pilgrims carry these credentials, record each night's stay, and walk with intention toward a sacred destination, fostering a spiritual bond with the saint whose footsteps they follow.  A Servant Pilgrim bears the burden of his needs.  Journeys without a destination and without a credential are left to the vagabonds.

The Society of Servant Pilgrims makes a distinction between tourism and pilgrimage.  Although each pilgrim will bring his own experience and capabilities to the pilgrimage, the destination is always in focus - the pilgrim wakes every day intent on walking closer to the destination.  The pilgrim lives in the moment, bearing his cross, as St Jerome stated, neither taking thought for the morrow nor looking back at what he has left… A tourist studies the guide books and ventures out to see what he wants to see; a pilgrim walks closer to his destination every day to see what is there.

Applying first principles to the sometimes messy use of the term pilgrimage removes complications from the understanding of the endeavor.  By describing the otherwise broad term of pilgrimage, at the most fundamental level, according to the philosophy of the Society of Servant Pilgrims, it is about encounters with humanity rather than sightseeing, high adventure or communing with nature.

By contrast, if a solo spiritual excursion into wilderness is desired by the heart to deepen understandings and endeavor for a transformative outcome, making a hermitage could be more suitable.  Pilgrims, who go on pilgrimage, and hermits, who go on hermitage, are spiritually closely aligned.  The Society of Servant Pilgrims also has experience with hermitage in this sense.

Ann is one of the original pilgrims in the Society of Servant Pilgrims.  An excursion in the autumn of 2007 along a stretch of the Camino de Santiago during a 20th-year sabbatical from her career as a nuclear remediation engineer piqued her unknown interest to follow in the footsteps of important saints who changed world history. Extending the sabbatical year to two, she made a proper pilgrimage, walking from Canterbury to Rome along the 2,000-year old Via Francigena in winter in order to arrive in Rome - specifically at the tomb of St Peter at the Vatican - for Easter.  Transfixed by the depth of the experience, she extended the sabbatical, again and again, thinking 'just one more pilgrimage, then I'll return to work'.  After the fifth pilgrimage, walking from Santiago de Compostela to Jerusalem across North Africa, she had absolute clarity of her calling in life: the concept of a Servant Pilgrim rested gently on her heart.

 Although initially, the pilgrimages were rife with high adventure and accompanying sightseeing, she learned that the real excitement of the pilgrim experience was encountering the people who lived along the way.  People have interesting stories to tell.  There is a real opportunity to connect with people, often with profound impact.  She realized that this connection really builds trust among strangers, and trust is certainly needed in the world.  People invited her with open arms into their homes and communities.  The world is filled with good people.  Even shady characters can be good, and trusted, and can trust, if even for a day.  Opportunities can be created that lead to enhancement of a fleeting moment and fill it with awe and wonder.

With the clarity experienced in Jerusalem, she accepted that mendicancy is the appropriate approach for a Servant Pilgrim.  Mendicancy is an effective tool – traveling with money is a touristic approach; traveling with nothing of value builds trust. Asking the neighbors of the world for a safe place to sleep at night, which generally also produces an offering of food, will not be successful if there is no trust. Having nothing of value precludes tempting someone to steal while relieving the pilgrim of the burden of having to devote time and effort to protect what the pilgrim does not really need anyway. It requires a true act of faith, a true act of humility, a purity of inter-human exchange.

By the autumn of 2023, Ann tallied up the pilgrimages to date and realized that the total distance walked was equivalent to two times the circumference of the earth.  The achievement warranted a party.  Some of the information was summarized - 

Second Lap Speech 🌎  Pilgrimage Summary Chart  🌎   Timeline

Heroes Camino Interview