Leo XIV and the Supplication of Pompeii

By Prof. Dr. Daniel C. Afonso · Updated 19 October 2026

A pontificate consecrated to Mary from the very first day

Elected Pope on May 8, 2025, Leo XIV keeps his Marian devotion alive in the first gestures of his pontificate. When he appeared for the first time on the loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica for the Habemus Papam and the Urbi et Orbi blessing, Pope Leo XIV included Mary in his message. After greeting the people and thanking his predecessors, the new Pope led the Hail Mary together with the crowd in Saint Peter’s Square. This act of closing his first public appearance with the Hail Mary, invoking the protection of the Most Holy Virgin, highlighted Leo XIV’s filial trust in Our Lady and from the very beginning consecrated his Petrine ministry to Mary’s care. Moreover, he quoted the Supplication of Pompeii, which we will examine throughout this article.

Supplication of Pompeii: origin, content, and magisterial value

Why do millions of the faithful, twice a year, on May 8 and on the first Sunday of October, raise their voices in one and the same prayer entitled “Supplication to the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii”? The answer involves three central names: Blessed Bartolo Longo, the prayer of the Rosary, and the ecclesial vision that integrates popular devotion, charity, and spiritual formation.

There are prayers that cross the centuries like underground rivers, emerging whenever the people of God need consolation. The Supplication to the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary of Pompeii is one of these streams of living water. To understand it, one need only follow the path of Blessed Bartolo Longo, converted from the shadows of anticlericalism to the lights of the Rosary. In 1872, on a scorching afternoon, he promised never to abandon the almost deserted valley of Pompeii until he had spread the Marian crown there. From that decision onward, the landscape changed: popular feasts, confraternities, missions, the arrival of a simple canvas that would become an icon, then the construction of a grand shrine that still today points to heaven like a finger of hope. Between bricks and Hail Marys, Longo also built schools, orphanages, and homes for the children of prisoners, convinced that contemplating Christ with Mary enlarges the heart to the point of embracing all the marginalized.

At the heart of this project beats the Supplication, composed in 1883, later taken from the booklet I Quindici Sabati and multiplied in countless leaflets that traveled around the world. The text opens with almost litanic praises, in which Mary is called “august,” “blessed,” “omnipotent by grace.” But it soon glides into an ardent confession of misery, offering itself as a mirror in which the sinner recognizes himself and rises again. The prayer then advances in a crescendo of intercessions, asking from the Mother’s throne what only the Father can grant: peace in times of war, forgiveness where hatreds are rampant, justice where inequalities reign, light for those who have lost the faith. Each invocation seems to pulse in the Rosary’s own cadence, evoking Christological mysteries that become a concrete balm for the wounds of the present.

The strength of the Supplication does not lie only in its rhetorical beauty. It was sealed by papal approval as early as 1887, gained a voice on the radio, and, twice a year, crosses the borders of the shrine like a planetary choir. When John Paul II beatified Bartolo Longo, he called him the “apostle of the Rosary” and acknowledged that this prayer had turned an arid valley into a laboratory of Christian charity. Whoever prays it today realizes that its words unite the unequal: peasants and cardinals, children and the elderly, all take their place in one and the same line of supplications that rises to the Heart of the Son. It is doctrine set in poetic form, theology translated into compassion, ecclesiology lived as fraternity.

The secret of the Supplication lies precisely in this pendular movement between contemplation and action. Longo wrote that “two friends who live together daily end up sharing even their habits.” Conversing with Christ and with the Virgin, repeating the mysteries, transforms the one who prays. The Supplication makes this encounter almost tangible, for it passes from the memory of the divine wonders to the urgent needs of our days. There, the Virgin is not a distant muse but the “Mother of sinners” who searches out every sorrow and presents it, like perfume, before the divine throne. To pray it implies taking on a commitment, just as its author did. The same ruined valley that saw churches raised also saw orphanages and schools, legal defenses of the condemned, and lines of the poor who were fed.

In a time that exalts speed and consumes news like sparks, the Supplication offers a deeper breath. It reminds us that the Gospel flourishes when someone dares to believe that the smallest space can become an epiphany of grace. To pray these lines is to enter the current of millions who, every May 8 and first Sunday of October, pronounce the same words, whether in neo-Gothic cathedrals, in tin-shack slums, or in digital broadcasts. The echo travels the globe, but always returns to the valley of Pompeii like a wave of gratitude.

Marian prayer preserves its theological richness when one returns to it as a source of evangelical creativity. What makes the Supplication relevant is the affection it distills and the promise embedded in it: whoever entrusts himself to Mary discovers Christ and, discovering Christ, finds his neighbor. For this reason, at each final invocation, “Queen of the Rosary of Pompeii, pray for us,” the one who prays, even if silent, feels called to continue the story begun by that converted lawyer, transforming deserts into gardens of mercy.

The Supplication of Pompeii

I. O August Queen of Victories, O sovereign Virgin of Paradise, at whose mighty name the heavens rejoice and the abysses tremble with terror. O glorious Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, we all, your blessed children, whom your goodness has chosen in this century to raise a Temple to you in Pompeii, prostrate here at your feet, on this most solemn day of the feast of your new triumphs over the land of idols and demons, pour out in tears the affections of our hearts and, with the confidence of children, lay bare our miseries.

Oh! from that throne of clemency where you sit as Queen, turn, O Mary, your merciful gaze upon us, upon all our families, upon Italy, upon Europe, upon the whole Church, and have compassion on the anguish in which we are tossed and the troubles that embitter our life.

See, O Mother, how many dangers, in soul and in body, surround us and how many calamities and afflictions oppress us. O Mother, stay the arm of justice of your offended Son and win over, with clemency, the hearts of sinners: they too are our brothers and your children, who cost sweet Jesus blood and cost your most tender Heart the thrusts of a sword.

Today show yourself to all as you are: Queen of peace and of forgiveness. Hail, Holy Queen.

II. Oh, it is true, it is true that we, before all others, though your children, crucify Jesus anew in our hearts by our sins and pierce your Heart once again. Yes, we confess it, we deserve the harshest scourges. Remember, however, that on the summit of Calvary you gathered the last drops of that divine blood and the last testament of the dying Redeemer. That testament of a God, sealed with the blood of a God-Man, declared you our Mother, Mother of sinners. You, therefore, as our Mother, are our Advocate, our Hope. And we, groaning, stretch out our suppliant hands to you and cry out: Mercy!

Have compassion, O good Mother, have compassion on us, on our souls, on our families, on our relatives, on our friends, on our deceased brothers and, above all, on our enemies and on so many who call themselves Christians and yet tear apart the lovable Heart of your Son. Pity, oh pity! Today we plead for the nations that have gone astray, for all Europe, for the whole world, that they may return repentant to your heart. Mercy for all, O Mother of Mercy. Hail, Holy Queen.

III. Oh, what does it cost you, O Mary, to hear us? What does it cost you to save us? Has not Jesus placed in your hands all the treasures of His graces and mercies? You are enthroned, crowned Queen, at the right hand of your Son, surrounded by immortal glory above all the choirs of Angels. You extend your dominion through the whole breadth of the heavens, and to you are subject the earth and all the creatures that dwell in it. Your power reaches even to Hell, and you alone snatch us from the hands of Satan, O Mary. You are the Omnipotent by grace, therefore you can save us. If you say that you do not wish to help us because we are ungrateful children unworthy of your protection, tell us at least to whom else we can turn to be freed from so many scourges.

Ah, no! Your Mother’s heart will not bear to see us, your children, lost. The Child whom we see upon your knees and the mystical crown that we contemplate in your hand inspire us with confidence that we will be heard. We trust fully in you, we cast ourselves at your feet, we abandon ourselves like weak children into the arms of the tenderest of mothers and, this very day, yes, today, we await from you the graces we long for. Hail, Holy Queen.

One last grace we now implore of you, O Queen, which you cannot deny us on this most solemn day. Grant to all of us your constant love and, in a special way, your maternal blessing. No, we will not rise from your feet, we will not depart from your knees until you have blessed us.

Bless, O Mary, at this moment, the Supreme Pontiff. To the ancient laurels of your crown, to the old triumphs of your Rosary, for which you are called Queen of Victories, add yet this one, O Mother: grant triumph to Religion and peace to human society. Bless our Bishop, the Priests and, in a particular way, all those who are zealous for the honor of your Shrine.

Bless, finally, all the Associates of your new Temple of Pompeii and all who cultivate and promote devotion to your Holy Rosary.

O blessed Rosary of Mary, sweet chain that binds us to God, bond of love that unites us to the Angels, tower of salvation against the assaults of hell, safe harbor in the common shipwreck, we will never leave you again. You will be our comfort in the hour of agony. To you we will give the last kiss of our fading life. And the last word on our pale lips will be your sweet name, Queen of the Rosary of the Valley of Pompeii, O our dear Mother, only refuge of sinners, sovereign consoler of the sorrowful. Be blessed everywhere, today and always, on earth and in Heaven. Amen. Hail, Holy Queen.

Greeting from the Locus Mariologicus community to Pope Leo XIV

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mater Ecclesiae and Star of the New Evangelization, clothe your Petrine ministry with the brightness of her fiat, an act of faith and love that brought the Light itself into the world. United with the whole Church, we turn to Her with the words of the most ancient Marian supplication: Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei Genetrix (We fly to thy protection, O holy Mother of God). We therefore entrust you to her maternal tenderness, certain that, under her gaze, the Barque of Peter will advance steadfastly in hope, in unity, and in charity.

Mary, Salus Populi Romani and Mater Spei, pray for us and guide the Pontificate of Leo XIV ad multos annos, for the glory of the Most Holy Trinity and the joy of all the faithful.

The Supplication of Pompeii and the devotion of the Rosary, so dear to Leo XIV, find their theological foundation in John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae, an essential reference for contemporary Marian spirituality.

Deepen your studies: explore Mariology, Marian Theology, Marian apparitions, and the Postgraduate Program in Mariology.

Formation in Mariology: The Locus Mariologicus Institute offers the Postgraduate Program in Mariology, articles, and academic resources on Mariology, Marian apparitions, and Marian Theology.

To deepen Marian devotion through the Rosary, consult Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation Marialis Cultus.