By Courtney Mares
OSV News
POMPEI, Italy — Pope Leo XIV marked the anniversary of his May 8 election by making a pilgrimage to celebrate Mass at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary in Pompei, one of Italy’s most beloved Marian shrines, placing his pontificate under the protection of the Virgin Mary.
“Exactly one year ago, when I was entrusted with the ministry of the Successor of Peter, it was precisely the day of the Supplication to the Virgin, this beautiful feast of the Supplication to the Virgin of the Holy Rosary of Pompei,” the pope said in his homily before an estimated 20,000 people gathered in the piazza in front of the basilica.
“I therefore had to come here to place my ministry under the protection of the Blessed Virgin,” he said.
The pilgrimage brought Pope Leo XIV full circle: On May 8, 2025, moments after his election, the newly chosen pope led the crowd from the loggia in St. Peter’s Basilica in praying a Hail Mary on what happened to be the feast of Our Lady of Pompei. Now, a year later, the pope began his homily with words echoing Mary’s Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord!”
“Brothers and sisters, no earthly power will save the world, but only the divine power of love, this divine power of love that Jesus, the Lord, has revealed to us and given us. Let us believe in him, let us hope in him and let us follow him,” Pope Leo said in Pompei.
The first pope born in the United States had a busy first year. The Augustinian pope presided over more than 65 public Masses, the canonization of nine saints, apostolic journeys across three continents, audiences with many world leaders, and led the Catholic Church in the celebration of the historic Jubilee of Hope.
Dedication to rosary
On the morning of the May 8 anniversary, the pope traveled south by helicopter from the Vatican to the Sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary in Pompei, located near Naples. He began the day by meeting with hundreds of sick and disabled pilgrims inside the basilica before greeting thousands of people gathered in the piazza outside.
The Marian shrine has its roots in a remarkable conversion story of a former Satanist who was canonized as a saint by Pope Leo in October as one of the first new saints of his pontificate.
The basilica was founded by St. Bartolo Longo, an Italian lawyer and former Satanist who returned to the Catholic faith and dedicated his life to promoting the rosary.
Located near the ancient Roman ruins of Pompeii, the modern city of Pompei (now spelled without a second “i”) was founded after Bartolo Longo built the Marian sanctuary.
“One hundred and fifty years ago, as he laid the cornerstone of this shrine — on the very spot where the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. had buried the vestiges of a great civilization under ash, preserving them for centuries — St. Bartolo Longo, together with his wife, Countess Marianna Farnararo De Fusco, laid the foundations not only of a church, but of an entire Marian city,” Pope Leo said.
In addition to the basilica, Bartolo Longo also built up the extensive charity network around the shrine, welcoming orphans and the children of prisoners, and earning two nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize in the early 1900s.
“When St. Bartolo first arrived in the valley of Pompeii, he found a land plagued by great poverty, inhabited by a few very poor farmers, and ravaged by malaria and bandits. He was able to see, however, the face of Christ in everyone: in the young and the old, and especially in the orphans and the children of prisoners, to whom he made the beating of God’s heart felt through his tenderness,” the pope said in a meeting with charity volunteers affiliated with the shrine before the Mass.
Today the Pompei shrine dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary draws approximately 3 million pilgrims annually. Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis all made pilgrimages to the shrine, which was named a basilica by Pope Leo XIII in 1901.
On his anniversary, Pope Leo XIV reflected on how his choice of the papal name Leo connects him to Pope Leo XIII, who championed devotion to the rosary.
“Having chosen the name Leo places me in the footsteps of Leo XIII, who, among his other merits, also developed an extensive magisterium on the holy rosary,” he said.
In his homily, Pope Leo XIV reflected at length on the importance of praying the rosary.
“The Hail Mary is an invitation to joy,” he said. “It tells Mary — and through her, all of us — that upon the ruins of our humanity, tried by sin and therefore ever prone to oppression, abuse, and war, God’s caress has come, the caress of mercy, which takes on a human face in Jesus.”
The pope closed his homily with an urgent appeal for peace, noting that “times have not improved” in the quarter century since St. John Paul II placed the Year of the Rosary under the patronage of Our Lady of Pompei.
“The wars still being waged in so many regions of the world call for a renewed commitment, not only economic and political, but also spiritual and religious,” Pope Leo said. “Peace is born in the heart. … We cannot resign ourselves to the images of death that the news presents to us every day.”
Invoking the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the pope prayed that “the God of peace would pour out an overflowing abundance of mercy, touching hearts, soothing grudges and fratricidal hatred, and enlightening those who bear special responsibilities of governance.”
From Pompei, the pope traveled to the nearby city of Naples for the afternoon leg of his pastoral visit, where he was greeted with the kind of exuberant welcome the southern Italian city is known for.
At the Naples Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary, Pope Leo venerated and kissed the reliquary containing the blood of St. Januarius, the fourth-century bishop and patron saint of the city. As the pope held the reliquary, the saint’s preserved blood liquefied — an occurrence Neapolitans have long regarded as a miracle and a favorable omen. The phenomenon has taken place in the presence of only two popes in modern history: during the visit of Pope Pius IX in 1848 and Pope Francis in 2015.
Above: Pope Leo XIV delivered the homily May 8 as he celebrated Mass in Piazza Bartolo Longo in front of the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei near Naples, Italy, on the first anniversary of his election as the first American pontiff. (Simone Risoluti / Vatican Media / OSV News)