Pope Leo XIV will return to Genazzano, a small town about 40 kilometers from Rome, to preside over Mass at the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel on September 7 at 6:00 p.m. The celebration comes on the eve of the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.It will be his first public papal visit to the shrine, which he visited privately two days after his election to the papacy on May 10, 2025.
During that first visit as Pope, Leo XIV told the Augustinian friars and faithful gathered outside the basilica that he “very much wanted to come here during these first days of the new ministry that the Church has entrusted to me, in order to continue the mission as Successor of Peter.”In the shrine’s guest book he wrote that he had “felt the duty and a deep desire” to come to “the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel.”“Throughout my entire life, she has accompanied me with her maternal presence, with her wisdom, and with the example of her love for her Son, who is always at the center of my faith. The way, the truth and the life. Thank you, Mother, for your help; accompany me in this new mission,” he wrote.The Pope entered the Order of Saint Augustine in the Augustinian Province of Chicago, which is itself dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel.
As a friar, he visited the Genazzano shrine for decades — first as a young student in Rome in the early 1980s, then frequently as Prior General, later as Bishop of Chiclayo, and as a cardinal. His most recent visit before his election was for the Feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel on April 25, 2024, when he urged the faithful to look to Mary as an inspiration for spreading peace and reconciliation. Even on the day of his election, May 8, 2025, before appearing on the Central Loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica, he prayed in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace before the image of Our Lady of Good Counsel.
The Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel stands on the site of a small 13th-century church dedicated to Mary. In 1356, the Colonna family, lords of the area, entrusted pastoral care of the church to the Augustinian friars, who had a small convent on the outskirts of Genazzano. At the beginning of the 15th century, they began to rebuild and enlarge both the church and convent. An Augustinian tertiary widow, Petruccia, helped fund the project by selling all her possessions.
Though mocked for lacking sufficient funds, she maintained that the Blessed Virgin and Saint Augustine would bring the work to completion.On April 25, 1467, a miraculous event occurred: an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared on a wall of the still-unfinished church. It was later recognized by two Albanian pilgrims as the same image venerated in Shkodër, Albania, which had disappeared from its original location.The event drew thousands of faithful. Miracles and graces were reported, and donations allowed the construction of the church and convent to be completed. Over the centuries, other pontiffs have also visited the shrine, including Urban VIII, Pius IX, John XXIII, and John Paul II. Their images are depicted on the walls of the shrine’s small chapel.
For the September 7 Mass, Father Ludovico Centra, rector of the shrine, told Vatican News that a painting depicting Pope Leo XIV praying before the image of the Virgin, like his predecessors, will be unveiled during the visit.