Visible from the motorways of Marseille and from the train station, the gare Saint-Charles, Notre Dame de la Garde is the city's most well-known symbol. It is the most-visited site in Marseille, and receives hundreds of visitors every day, a number of pilgrims remarkable for a site that with no association with a saint, vision or miracle, nor for that matter with a famous person. For Cardinal Etchegaray, former bishop of Marseille, the Virgin of the Garde "does not merely form part of the landscape like the Chateau d'If or the Old Port, it is the living heart of Marseille, its central artery more than the Canebière. It is not the exclusive property of Catholics; it belongs to the human family that teems in Marseille." Notre-Dame de la Garde remains the heart of the diocese of Marseille, even more so than the cathedral. It was here that Bishop Jean Delay on August 30, 1944, hoped that deep reforms would bring to the poorest more humane and more just living and working conditions. It was also here that Etchegaray compared, in May 1978, the ravages of unemployment to those of the plague of Marseille of 1720.