Pope Leo XIV continues decades-old papal tradition, laying flowers at the Immaculate Conception column in Piazza di Spagna on the solemnity’s feast day.
Newsroom (08/12/2025 Gaudium Press )On the morning of December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, Pope Leo XIV made the short journey from the Vatican to Piazza di Spagna to perpetuate one of the most enduring public gestures of Marian devotion in the papacy has known.
Beneath a clear Roman sky, the Holy Father approached the 12-meter column erected in 1857, just three years after Pius IX solemnly defined the dogma. Atop the ancient marble shaft stands the bronze statue of the Virgin Mary, her arms outstretched, crushing the serpent beneath her foot. There, in the heart of the city, Pope Leo placed a wreath of white flowers at the monument’s base and offered a lengthy prayer addressed directly to the Immaculate Mother.
The custom dates to the mid-20th century. Within a century of the 1854 proclamation, Pope Pius XII began sending flowers to the column. In 1958, Saint John XXIII personally carried a basket of white roses to the same spot, establishing the practice that every Pope since has maintained.
Accompanied by the Vicar of Rome, Cardinal Baldassare Reina, and Rome’s mayor, Roberto Gualtieri, Pope Leo was welcomed by a choir and assembly that greeted his arrival with the Marian hymn “You rise more beautiful than the dawn.” After an opening prayer, the Pope laid the traditional bouquet while the choir intoned the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Standing before the statue, the Pontiff then recited a prayer rich in Jubilee imagery and pleas for peace:
“Hail, O Mary! Rejoice, full of grace… Immaculate one, Mother of a faithful people, your purity bathes Rome in eternal light… Look, O Mary, upon so many sons and daughters whose hope has not been extinguished… May jubilee hope blossom in Rome and in every corner of the earth… After the holy doors, may other doors now open—doors of homes and oases of peace where dignity may flourish again…”
The Pope asked Mary to inspire “new insights” in the Church, to intercede for a world facing rapid change, and to teach humanity “the art of reconciliation.” He concluded by entrusting the city and the entire human family to the woman he called “Queen of Peace.”
Before returning to the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV moved among the estimated 30,000 faithful packed into the piazza and surrounding streets. He paused repeatedly to greet children, the elderly, and the sick who had waited for hours to receive his blessing.
With this simple yet deeply symbolic act—flowers laid at the feet of the Immaculate Virgin in the commercial heart of modern Rome—Pope Leo XIV once again linked the eternal doctrine of Mary’s sinlessness to the concrete hopes and struggles of the men and women of today, continuing a tradition that now more than seventy years old.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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