Pope Leo XIV held his first visit outside Rome on Saturday and visited by surprise an Augustinian sanctuary near the Italian capital.
Robert Provest Martínez was chosen on Thursday. By belonging to the Order of San Agustín, our Lady of the Good Council of Genazzano visited, 50 kilometers to the southeast of Rome. The Italian television channel TV2000 showed images of the pontiff coming out of a black vehicle and entering the basilica.
This visit was cheered by hundreds of people who were very “excited.”
The pontiff arrived in the afternoon for “a private visit” to the sanctuary, which is “run by the religious of the order of St. Augustine” and “houses an ancient image of the Virgin, loved by the order and by the memory of Leo XIII,” said the press office of the Holy See.
“After the welcome festive by several hundred people gathered in the square in front of the sanctuary, the Pope entered the Church, where he greeted the religious and stopped to pray, first in front of the altar and after the image of the Virgin, where with those present he recited the prayer of John Paul II to the mother of the good advice,” is added in a note.
Pope Leo XIV visited this Saturday the Augustinian sanctuary of the Virgin of Good Council in Genazzano, near Rome. Photo: EFE
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After reciting the Ave Maria and singing the Salve Regina, Leo XIV “he addressed those present in the Church, greeting them and the genazzans gathered outside” and dedicated these words: “I have wanted to come here a lot in these first days of the new ministry that the Church has entrusted me, to carry out this mission as the successor of Peter.”
After remembering “the visit made after his election as a prior to the order of St. Augustine, and the choice to ‘offer his own life to the Church’, the Pope reiterated his ‘confidence in the mother of good advice’, a company of ‘Light, of wisdom’ with the words that Mary directed the servants on the day of the wedding of Cana, narrated in the Gospel of John: ‘Do what he tells you’.
The Pope then held “a private encounter” with the community of the sanctuary and then from the door of the Basilica greeted and blessed everyone present, explained the Vatican.
It is not the first time that Prevost visits the sanctuary, because he has done so after each important appointment, such as when he was chosen prior to the Augustinians, Bishop, Cardinal and Pope.
