Towards the end of the fifteenth century, this picture was brought from Crete to Rome; it was in the possession of a merchant from Crete, who appears to have stolen it; it is reputed to have hung in his home for some years. In 1499, during the pontificate of Alexander VI, it was placed in the church of San Matteo in the via Merulana, where it was venerated for some three hundred years. In the aftermath of the French revolution the church was destroyed and the whereabouts of the picture were unknown. It was providentially rediscovered in 1865. Pius IX restored it to public veneration in the church of St Alphonsus Liguori in Rome.

  When the new diocese of Leeds was created in December 1878, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour was declared principal patroness of the Diocese. In 2010 the title was changed to Our Lady of Unfailing Help.

  The Diocese of Hallam was formed on 30 May 1980 by the division of the Dioceses of Leeds and Nottingham and consists of South Yorkshire, parts of the High Peak and the Chesterfield Districts of Derbyshire and the District of Bassetlaw in Nottinghamshire, under the patronage of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour.

  Our Lady of Perpetual Succour is also patroness of other dioceses around the world.

  He preached in the rural districts around Naples, and it was his boast that he never delivered a sermon that the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand. His bishop asked him to establish an order of missionaries to work in the countryside, and the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists) was formally established in 1749.

  He was a bishop from 1762 to 1775, insisting on the dignified and unhurried celebration of the Mass and the firm treatment of persistent wrongdoers. He was also an outstanding moral theologian, and won back sinners to the fold by patience and moderation.

  In the earliest centuries all vestments were white – the white of baptismal purity and of the robes worn by the armies of the redeemed in the Apocalypse, washed white in the blood of the Lamb. As the Church grew secure enough to be able to plan her liturgy, she began to use colour so that our sense of sight could deepen our experience of the mysteries of salvation, just as incense recruits our sense of smell and music that of hearing. Over the centuries various schemes of colour for feasts and seasons were worked out, and it is only as late as the 19th century that they were harmonized into their present form.