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Like many European cities, the Eternal City was at risk of being destroyed in World War II. But the Romans, led by their bishop, Pope Pius XII, called upon the Virgin Mary.
On June 4, 1944, Pope Pius XII and the Catholics of Rome invoked Our Lady of Divine Love. In the church of St. Ignatius, they prayed fervently before the icon of the Salus Populi Romani, asking the Mother of God's intercession that their city might be spared.
“Rome, which only yesterday trembled for the lives of its sons and daughters, for the fate of incomparable treasures of religion and culture, which had before its eyes the terrifying specter of war and unimaginable destruction, looks today with new hope and strengthened confidence towards its salvation.”
On Tuesday, June 6, 1944, as Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, Pope Pius XII celebrated a great victory in St. Peter's Square: the liberation of Rome by General Mark Wayne Clark's American troops, which took place between June 4 and 5.
Now 80 years later, the Diocese of Rome commemorated this miraculous liberation with numerous processions, Masses, and rosaries in several of Rome's churches, starting on June 4.
On Saturday June 8, the Virgin Mary was thanked in the Basilica of St. Mary Major, with a Mass presided over by Cardinal Stanislaw Rylko, followed by the recitation of the rosary.
Here are images from the Mass
Pope Francis' favorite
Today, the Pauline chapel of St. Mary Major is the home of the icon of the Virgin Mary Salus Populi Romani (salvation of the Roman people) — which, according to tradition, was painted by St. Luke.
"I've always had a great devotion to St. Mary Major, even before I became pope," he says in his recent book El Sucesor ("The Successor"), written with vaticanist Javier Martìnez-Brocal.
