At a time when Britain, America, and much of Europe have never been so secular, Timothy Egan sets out on a thousand-mile pilgrimage along an ancient route, through the theological cradle of Christianity, to explore one of the biggest stories of our time: the collapse of religion in the world that it created. Egan sets out along the Via Francigena, once the major medieval route for the devout to Rome, and follows the course described by Sigeric the Serious, Archbishop of Canterbury, when he walked through Europe to see the pope in the year 990.Traveling a landscape laced with some of the most important shrines in Christian history, Egan brings us into the chapel where Queen Bertha introduced Christianity to pagan Britain; visits a French town built on miracles; and journeys to the oldest abbey in the western world, founded in 515 and home to continuous prayer over the 1,500 years that followed. He is accompanied by fellow pilgrims and by the towering figures of the faith: Joan of Arc, Henry VIII, Martin Luther. The goal: walking to Saint Peters Square over the old Roman road, in hopes of meeting the pope who is struggling to hold together the world`s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics.