ROME – In his first outing as pope, Leo XIV made an unannounced visit to a shrine dedicated to St Augustine in a small town outside of Rome, where he prayed before a famed icon housed there and met with members of the Augustinian order.
In a May 10 statement, the Vatican said that shortly after 4pm that day “Pope Leo XIV visited the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano for a private visit”.
The shrine, run by the religious order of St Augustine, is home to an ancient image of the Virgin Mary, “dear to the order and to the memory of Leo XIII”, whose encyclical Rerum Novarum helped inspire Leo XIV’s choice in name.
