Many popes have been great champions of Our Lady of Good Counsel and her image. Paul II first approved devotion to her. Popes Urban VIII, Pius IX and John XXIII all made trips to the church in Genarazzo to honor her. Pope Benedict XIV established the Pious Union of Our Lady of Good Counsel in 1753, which has included among its members the popes Pius VIII, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius XII, who placed his papacy under her maternal care. He later composed this prayer to Our Lady of Good Counsel, which can be used as a novena:
O Holy Virgin, to whose feet we are led by our anxious uncertainty in our search for and attainment of what is true and good, invoking you by the sweet title of Mother of Good Counsel, we beseech you to come to our assistance, when, along the road of this life, the darkness of error and of evil conspires towards our ruin by leading our minds and our hearts astray. O Seat of Wisdom and Star of the Sea, enlighten the doubtful and the erring, that they be not seduced by the false appearances of good; render them steadfast in the face of the hostile and corrupting influences of passion and of sin. O Mother of Good Counsel, obtain for us from your Divine Son a great love of virtue, and, in the hour of uncertainty and trial, the strength to embrace the way that leads to our salvation. If your hand sustains us, we shall walk unmolested along the path indicated to us by the life and words of Jesus, our Redeemer; and having followed freely and securely, even in the midst of this world's strife, the Sun of Truth and Justice under your maternal Star, we shall come to the enjoyment of full and eternal peace with you in the haven of salvation. Amen.
