During the Jubilee Audience in Vatican City, Victor Mooney, a native of Flushing, Queens, presented Pope Leo XIV with a unique memento of his faith and dedication. Mooney gifted the Pontiff a pennant that had accompanied him on his "Pilgrimage on Wheels," a grueling 1,000-kilometer cycling journey across Poland. 

This pilgrimage was undertaken as a personal tribute to Pope Francis, blending physical endurance with spiritual devotion. The 59-year-old devout Catholic cycled to numerous Catholic shrines and, with profound respect, paid homage to the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust at the former Nazi death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek.  

Following Mooney's poignant farewell to Pope Francis in Rome with a symbolic 6-kilometer journey from St. Peter's Square to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Mooney donated his bicycle to the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS. 

Over the years, Mooney has been privileged to have audiences with St. John Paul II and Pope Francis at the Vatican.