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Pope John Paul II went as a pilgrim to Pompeii, Italy to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7, 2003, her feast day to pray for world peace. He proclaimed the year 2003 as the Year of the Rosary. He prayed, “May Mary's maternal intercession obtain justice and peace for the entire world. How important it is that during this Year of the Rosary we persevere in praying the Rosary to implore peace! I ask that you continue to do so, especially in Marian shrines. Let us raise our prayers to God that love may conquer hatred, that peace, justice and solidarity may grow in every corner of the earth, in the spirit of the Gospel."

This article will explain the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Blessed Bartolo Longo, the founder of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary and New Pompeii, and the importance of praying the Rosary for peace, especially the new mysteries composed by the Holy Father, the Luminous Mysteries.

The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary was occasioned by the victory of the Christian fleet over the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Lepanto on October 7, 1571. It was forty years after the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego in Mexico. The very first replica image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was present in the cabin of the flagship of the Christian fleet under the leadership of Admiral Andrea Doria. The Turks had planned to use the greatest navy that the world had ever seen to conquer all of Christendom. The Christian naval fleet was out-shipped, out-gunned and out-manned by the powerful Turkish fleet under Admiral Ali Pasha and defeat looked imminent.

The Pope called for a Rosary Crusade. Christians prayed throughout Europe and Admiral Andrea Doria prayed before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He prayed as the Christian and Turkish fleets approached each other. Suddenly, the winds changed and the Turkish fleet was thrown into disarray. Their ships were blown into each other. Two hundred and thirty Turkish ships were destroyed and 1500 of their Christian galley slaves were freed. This victory brought an end to Turkish sea power and its threat to the Christian world.

     Three centuries later in 1872, Blessed Bartolo Longo, a lawyer, went to Pompeii to help administer some land of the Countess Marianna De Fusco. Ancient Pompeii was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and covered it in rocks and ash. Bartolo was moved by the plight of the poor and criminal people who lived in the ruins of ancient Pompeii. One evening, as he walked near the ruined rat infested chapel at Pompeii, he had a profound mystical experience. He heard a voice, "If you seek salvation, promulgate the Rosary. This is Mary's own promise."

     The physical and moral misery of the people so moved his heart that he decided to dedicate himself to spread the Rosary to them. He promised Our Lady, "If it be true that you promised St. Dominic that whoever spreads the Rosary will be saved, I will be saved, because I will not leave Pompeii until I have spread your Rosary." The rest of his life was a fulfillment of this vow. He undertook a great mission of evangelization, going from house to house distributing medals, holy pictures, scapulars, and catechisms and instructing the poor in the knowledge and power of the Rosary. He cared for orphans and children of prisoners and built homes for them.

     Later he married the Countess and with her help he inaugurated a Confraternity of the Rosary. He needed an image of Our Lady before which the Rosary could be recited every day. He obtained a very poor quality image from a junkshop dealer and received permission from the Bishop to build a new church where it was installed. Many miracles occurred and pilgrimages to the church began. Eventually, the great basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii was completed.

Blessed Bartolo Longo

Pompeii grew from a hamlet of three hundred inhabitants in 1872 to a city of thirty thousand in a hundred years. Bartolo founded this new city that he called “New Pompeii” in order to distinguish it from its opposite of the old Pompeii. He wrote, "Next to a land of dead appeared, quite suddenly, a land of resurrection and life: next to a shattered amphitheatre soiled with blood, there is a living Temple of faith and love, a sacred Temple to the Virgin Mary; from a town buried in the filth of gentilism, arises a town full of life, drawing its origins from a new civilization brought by Christianity: The New Pompeii! . . . It is the new civilization that openly appears beside the old; the new art next to the old; Christianity full of life in juxtaposition to long surpassed Paganism." ("The History of the Shrine of Pompeii", Bartolo Longo).

The Shrine of Our Lady of the
Rosary, Pompeii, Italy

The city of Pompeii has a monument to Bartolo on which is inscribed, “Pompeii / Marian town / Where Faith and Charity / Create miracles / Where prayer is perennial / Honors its founder / Bartolo Longo / Apostle of the Rosary / Father of the orphans / MCMLXII”.

Bartolo died in 1926. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1980. His feast day is observed on October 6. Pope John Paul II called him "a layman who had lived his ecclesial pledge to the full". He was a forerunner of the modern catholic layman.

The Shrine represented to Bartolo Longo a monument dedicated to universal peace. One day he had a prophetic vision of “the white figure of the representative of Christ gazing out to bless the people calling for universal Peace." This vision was fulfilled by the Pope’s visit to Pompeii.

In his Apostolic Letter, On the Most Holy Rosary, Pope John Paul II said,“ A number of historical circumstances make a revival of the Rosary quite timely. First of all, the need to implore from God the gift of peace. At the start of a millennium which began with the terrifying attacks of September 11, 2001, a millennium which witnesses every day in numerous parts of the world fresh scenes of bloodshed and violence, to rediscover the Rosary means to immerse oneself in contemplation of the mystery of Christ who "is our peace", since he made "the two of us one, and broke down the dividing wall of hostility". (Eph 2:14).

“Never as in the Rosary do the life of Jesus and that of Mary appear so deeply joined. Mary lives only in Christ and for Christ! In proposing to the Christian community five significant moments – "luminous" mysteries – during the phase of Christ’s public ministry, I think that the following can be fittingly singled out: (1) his Baptism in the Jordan, (2) his self-manifestation at the wedding of Cana, (3) his proclamation of the Kingdom of God, with his call to conversion, (4) his Transfiguration, and finally, (5) his institution of the Eucharist, as the sacramental expression of the Paschal Mystery.”

Let us pray these Luminous Mysteries for the Pope’s cause of world peace.