Ex-LIer Victor Mooney embarks on bike pilgrimage to promote peace and tolerance in honor of Pope Francis

Victor Mooney, a former Long Islander who rowed 5,000 miles across the Atlantic in 2015, is taking his thirst for adventure and philanthropy to Europe, pedaling more than 650 miles across Poland and Italy to honor the late Pope Francis while tackling antisemitism.

The 59-year-old Queens resident said he is embarking on a cycling pilgrimage this week to promote peace and tolerance in honor of Francis, who tried to make the Catholic Church more inclusive. Mooney's mission comes as Jewish people continue to face high levels of harassment, vandalism and assault. The Anti-Defamation League reported a record-breaking 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the country last year, a 5% increase from 2023 and the highest since it started tracking such incidents 46 years ago.

"We're in difficult times," Mooney said in a phone call Tuesday. "I’m hoping this will be meaningful and touch the lives of people and lower the temperature on this climate of hate."

Mooney, who was raised in various Long Island communities including Freeport, said the idea of combating antisemitism was planted over a decade ago when Stephen Fleisher, a Bay Shore business owner of Jewish faith, gifted him stainless steel tubes for his rowing expedition. Mooney said the tubes helped him from falling overboard on a trip that started from the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa in February 2014 and, according to The Associated Press, ended 21 months later at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in November 2015.

Before that successful voyage, he had three previous failed trans-Atlantic rowing attempts that also caught media attention. He began rowing to spur HIV testing because his brother died of AIDS in 1983. Another brother passed of AIDS during the pandemic, he said.

In 2011, Mooney's boat sprang a leak as soon as it was launched from the island of Sao Vicente off Cape Verde, Newsday previously reported. In 2009, Mooney was rescued by a Spanish tuna boat. In 2006, his self-made boat sank and the Senegalese navy rescued him, Newsday reported. 

Fleischer was touched to learn Mooney would be cycling for a purpose that was close to his heart.

"It’s nice to see people other than your own being concerned about your problems," said Fleischer. "I don't need myself or my family to have concerns here in the U.S. and worry about our well-being ... for no particular reason other than for being who we are."

Mooney said he plans on biking 50-75 miles daily, with stops at Catholic shrines and former death camps Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. He said he'll sleep anywhere, even if it’s "under a tree." Communing with nature, he said, is a way for him to pay homage to his Black ancestors and Jewish people.

"When we were running from the slave masters, we would go into the swamps and hide because they were trying to put us back on a plantation. On the other side, the Nazis were on the Jews and they were running into the forest," he said.

Mooney hopes to complete his journey in Poland by June 13, when he plans to fly to Italy for the final leg of his trip.

There, he will ride his bike about four miles from Vatican City to Santa Maria Maggiore basilica where he hopes he will wrap up his journey at the tomb of Pope Francis. 

He will likely be joining many other faithful in Rome. It is a Jubilee Holy Year for Catholics, an event that occurs once every 25 years that, according to The Associated Press, attracts millions of pilgrims to Rome. The theme this year is "Pilgrims of Hope." 

"I have so much to be grateful for and now it's almost like coming full circle. I get to see Poland, and it’s not so much of tourist places, it’s praying, evangelizing and just sharing faith," Mooney said.

He thinks this will be his last long bike ride.