By Currents News and Alexandra Moyen
JAMAICA — Waiting Inside Terminal 7 at John F. Kennedy International Airport on May 28, Victor Mooney stood next to a box that held his bicycle. On top were two small rocks, each inscribed with a simple message: “2025, We Remember Now.”
Also with him were books, including St. John Paul II’s biography “A Celebration” and the memoir by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, “Night,” of which he plans to read on his upcoming journey.
For Mooney, a Catholic, they aren’t just momentos, but a promise to honor the legacy of Pope Francis by turning remembrance into a movement.
“The greatest tsunami now is antisemitism, and Pope Francis has been a chief proponent of trying to lower the temperature on that,” Mooney said. “I hope this bicycle pilgrimage can do that, and I feel the only remedy to combat hate is with love.”
Inspired by Pope Francis’ five-day pilgrimage to Poland in 2016 and the country’s historical ties to the Holocaust, Mooney boarded a flight to Warsaw. From there, he launched his 621-mile cycling pilgrimage across Poland as part of his We Remember Challenge — a personal tribute to the legacy of the late pope and a call to action against antisemitism.
“If I can share a glimpse of Pope Francis’ legacy in fighting antisemitism, increasing tolerance, and strengthening interfaith dialogue, I think I’ve done something for humanity,” Mooney said.
Beginning on June 2, Mooney plans to travel 80-100 miles a day, beginning each of his rides at 2 a.m. He said his first stop would be Piłsudski Square, formerly Victory Square in Warsaw, the same site where St. John Paul II made his historic visit back in 1979. From there, he’s going to the Black Madonna of Częstochowa — a venerated icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary housed at the Jasna Góra Monastery — where he said he plans to pray for “help, guidance, and protection.”
Mooney will then continue on to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim, where he plans to leave one of the inscribed rocks at the concentration camp as an act of remembrance of the atrocities committed. There, he will also read from “Night,” a moment he knows he “will never forget.”
Along his route, Mooney said he also plans to visit other spiritually and historically significant sites, including the family home of St. John Paul II and the Bazylika Wadowice in Wadowice, the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Kraków, the Lord’s Ark Church in Nowa Huta, and the Majdanek State Museum in Lublin, which is Mooney’s final destination and the resting place of his second rock.
“It’ll be a tearful experience, but the only antidote to fight hate is with love,” Mooney said, “So, I’m going to Poland as a pilgrim on two wheels.
“And it’s not a race, but I do have a flight back to Rome for the Jubilee of Sport on June 13.”
Mooney’s advocacy against antisemitism goes back to the height of the Israeli-Hamas war, when he began seeing posters showing a picture of the different hostages held captive by Hamas, with the word “kidnapped” across the top.
Soon after, he said, they began appearing around his predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Kew Gardens Hills in Queens. That’s when Mooney said he noticed the “times were changing” around him and there was a spike in antisemitism.
“We are just in tough times right now, and the tsunami of hate is at unprecedented levels,” Mooney said. “I am just hoping to bring attention and solidarity as a black person.”
Mooney, who is a parishioner at St. Brigid Church in Westbury, New York, noted the “long traditional tie” between African Americans and Jewish people.
“We were both people who were oppressed,” Mooney said.
“When the slave master was trying to snatch us when we escaped the plantations, we diverted into the marshes to hide, and for our Jewish brothers [and sisters], they ran in the forest trying to avoid the Gestapo and the Nazis,” he added. “We have a shared history, and particularly in the 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement, Jewish people stood side-by-side with African Americans.”
Mooney’s decision to undertake a bicycle journey was also inspired by something Pope Francis said in an April 24, 2018, homily: “Someone once said that the equilibrium of the Church is like balancing a bicycle: it’s stable and goes well when it is moving. When you stop it, it falls.”
His trip will conclude in Rome, where he plans to visit the tomb of Pope Francis in the Papal Basilica of St. Mary Major and express his gratitude to the former Holy Father.
Mooney called the Jubilee Year a “great opportunity” for Catholics to “share their faith.”
“I hope others will follow. Particularly for young people, don’t be afraid to express your faith,” Mooney said. “You can say the Father is with you, helps you. Don’t be afraid.”