However, January 1 is also World Peace Day, and Mary is often referred to as Our Lady Queen of Peace. Over the years, several popes have stressed the importance of this title.
At the time of the Marian apparitions in Fatima (during which Mary - the mother of the Prince of Peace - asked the world to pray for peace), Benedict XV was pope. On May 5, 1917, in the devastating wake of World War I, Benedict added the invocation, "Queen of Peace, pray for us," to the Litany of Loreto.
On October 31, 1942, Pope Pius XII called for a prayer crusade to the Queen of Peace. many recent papal encyclicals also ask Mary to intercede for peace.
The first World Day of Peace was celebrated on January 1, 1968. In his message on the first observance of this day, Pope Paul VI expressed hope that the day would be celebrated every year "as a hope and as a promise, at the beginning of the calendar ... that peace with its just and beneficent equilibrium may dominate the developments of events to come."
- Little Blue Book, Diocese of Saginaw