Leo XIV at Genazzano: the prayer to Our Lady of Good Counsel

On 7 September 2026, the eve of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Pope Leo XIV went to the Augustinian shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel (Madonna del Buon Consiglio) at Genazzano, some forty kilometres from Rome, to preside at Mass at six o'clock in the evening. The place is not unfamiliar to him: two days after his election of 8 May 2025, it was there that he made, on 10 May, his first public journey as pope, his first Marian pilgrimage. An Augustinian, Robert Prevost frequented this shrine for decades: as a young student in Rome at the beginning of the 1980s, then as prior general of his order, then as bishop of Chiclayo and cardinal. The Augustinian province of Chicago which he entered is dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel.

The venerated image is said to have appeared there in prodigious fashion on a wall of the church then under construction on 25 April 1467; the Augustinians have had charge of it since 1356, the place having been entrusted to them by the Colonna family. The rector of the basilica-shrine, Father Ludovico Centra, announced that a painting depicting Leo XIV in prayer before the image would be unveiled during the visit, after the manner of those of his predecessors; Urban VIII, Pius IX, John XXIII and John Paul II had gone there before him. His last visit before his election dated to 25 April 2024, for the feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel, where his homily exhorted the faithful to work for peace and reconciliation after the example of Mary.

What the Church has always taught

To have recourse to the Mother of God, to pray to her, to ask her for counsel and help, is no late devotion: it is the constant practice of the Church. The Catechism of the Council of Trent sets it out in treating of the Angelic Salutation: « And it is not without reason that the holy Church hath added, to this thanksgiving, Prayers and invocations to the most holy Mother of God.

She wills that we have recourse to her with a pious confidence and a profound humility, in order to obtain through her intercession that God may be pleased to be reconciled with us in spite of all our faults. » We ought, it adds, as « children of Eve exiled in this vale of tears, to invoke, without ever wearying, her who is the Mother of mercy, the advocate of the faithful people ».

And Mary's counsel is never her own: it refers wholly to her Son. At the wedding of Cana she says but one thing to the servants: « Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye » (John, II, 5). Therein lies the whole of the « good counsel »: not a human wisdom, but obedience to Christ, in her of whom the Gospel notes that she « kept all these words, pondering them in her heart » (Luke, II, 19).

The measure

A pope who kneels before the image of the Virgin to entrust his charge to her does exactly what tradition prescribes to every Christian: to invoke the Mother of mercy and the advocate of the faithful people. On this point the act is right, and we say it without reserve: the Marian piety of a successor of Peter, publicly professed, is a good, and an example.

It remains that the measure of such a visit is neither the crowd, nor the painting that is unveiled, nor the long list of popes who have gone before. It lies in the one thing that Our Lady of Good Counsel asks: « Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye. » A devotion that brings souls back to the obedience of Christ and to the doctrine received is fruitful; one that stops at the image is not. The faithful will remember that one truly honours the Mother only by doing the will of the Son.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), fourth part, On Prayer, on the Angelic Salutation. Gospel according to Saint John, II, 5, and according to Saint Luke, II, 19 (Vulgate / Douay-Rheims).