Two 2026 Columbus Catholic high school graduates completed a pilgrimage this summer known as the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) in Spain. The pair walked more than 500 miles together during the course of 31 days.
Their destination was Spain’s Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela where the remains of St. James the Greater, one of the Twelves the Apostles and patron of Spain, are buried.
Columbus Bishop Watterson High School graduate Dominic Bently said the idea for the journey came to him as a sophomore when his theology teacher, William Olson, showed the class a movie called “The Way,” in which the main character walks the Camino. Olson had walked a portion of the Camino, Bently said, and “I just started asking him questions, and the more I talked to him about it, the more I just got excited about it.”
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Bently texted his friend Zac Utt, a then-sophomore at Columbus St. Charles Preparatory School, to gauge his interest. When Utt responded enthusiastically, it became a dream, and eventually, a concrete plan.
“We were kind of just like dreaming it up for the first year,” Bently said. “Then, as we were going into (our) senior year, we (realized) this is something we actually want to commit to.”
Bently and Utt, whose friendship began at a St. Charles Preparatory volleyball camp and grew through their involvement in a parish youth group, set off for the Camino this past June, following their graduations.
They first flew into Paris, planning to spend several days with Father Brett Garland, a priest of the Columbus diocese and Utt’s spiritual mentor, who was studying in Rome at the time. However, Father Garland had to be hospitalized for appendicitis, and his friend, Father Trevor Longtine from Denver, stepped in.
“Father Trevor just happened to have his own trip … to Paris,” said Utt, who is currently studying for the priesthood and in his first year of seminary at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus.
Father Longtine said Mass for the boys every day he was with them. The group stayed at a retreat house at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur in Paris, where they prayed midnight Holy Hours. “It all worked out very well,” Utt said. “Now, I’m still keeping in touch with (Father Longtine) a little bit.”
Bently and Utt then set off for the Camino, beginning in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, and walking hundreds of miles to Santiago, Spain. The first part of their days was spent walking roughly 15 to 20 miles until the early afternoon, when they stopped to avoid the heat and spent the night in hostels. “After walking for seven-plus hours, I was just happy to have any spot to lie down,” Utt said.
Bently and Utt said they were surprised to realize that the Camino de Santiago does not primarily consist of religious travelers looking to deepen their faith. “I, in all honesty, expected it to be a very religious pilgrimage,” said Bently, who is studying business and theology at Ave Maria University in Florida. “When we got there, that’s not what we were met with. … Over the years, the Camino has turned into … more of a secular hike.
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“That allowed for Zac (and me) to witness in our faith to so many people,” Bently continued. “When we started talking with people, we would find that they were searching – and … as people would walk more and they would have more silence with themselves – they would start to look deeper and (wonder), ‘What is real?’”
Utt said answering other travelers’ questions about his and Bently’s plans for the future was a good opener to conversations about faith.
“(With Dominic) studying theology at Ave Maria (and me) getting to say, ‘I’m entering seminary to study to be a Catholic priest,’ so many good conversations came out of that, subtly, because there’s so much ‘Church hurt’ out there. So many people have false perceptions of the Church so (we were happy) to get to just love people well and just be a demonstration of a positive force for the Church.”
Bently and Utt said it was a privilege to be sent out “two by two,” the same way the gospels describe Jesus sending His followers. “I definitely think it’s where the Lord wanted us,” Utt said.
