Two days after his election as Successor of St. Peter, Pope Leo XIV delivered an enlightening address to the College of Cardinals. The newly elected Supreme Pontiff shed light on his choice of a papal name: “There are different reasons,” he explained why he chose the name Leo. Above all because of his social teaching, he said. But what other reasons might there be? Video coverage of the address reveals the new Pope smiling during this personal revelation.
Perhaps in the days (and years) ahead the Pope will offer more insight on his selection. But, for the moment, we are left to wonder what the other, different reasons were for this first papal choice. Some thoughts on the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII may offer at least some suggestions for consideration.
Gioacchino Pecci, Cardinal Archbishop of Perugia was elected Pope Leo XIII in February of 1878. He was the first pope in a millennium to assume the Chair of St. Peter without simultaneously serving as temporal sovereign of the Papal States. Under his predecessor, Pope — now Blessed — Pius IX, the Papal States were claimed as part of a united Italian peninsula and the Pope became a “Prisoner of the Vatican.” How Leo XIII spent the next twenty-five years of his long pontificate offers lessons for the present ecclesial moment.
As has been rightly observed, Leo XIII began the tradition of modern Catholic social thought. His 1891 encyclical “Rerum novarum” offered magisterial reflection on the “new things” of the industrial revolution and the conditions of workers at the end of the nineteenth century. This committed Thomist utilized the categories of the thirteenth-century Italian Dominican Thomas Aquinas to analyze the problems of the modern era. Leo rejected the solution of the socialists to the challenges faced by the working class. He affirmed the right to private property, the need for intermediary associations between individuals and the state, decried the lack of protections for workers, especially women and children, and asserted the Church’s right and duty to intervene in moral matters related to economic and social policy.
Like Pope Francis, Leo XIII is not buried in St. Peter’s Basilica, the final resting place of so many popes, including John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Those who wish to venerate Leo XIII’s tomb have got to make their way across the city to the Lateran Basilica. At the Basilica of St. John Lateran, pilgrims discover the funeral monument to the founder of modern Catholic social thought. The statue of Leo XIII includes attributes commemorating his devotion to the rosary (about which he wrote many encyclicals) on the one hand and an industrial tool of the working man on the other.
Social concerns, however, do not exhaust the importance of this pope at the turn of the century. Those involved in seminary formation and theological instruction more generally remember Leo XIII as the pope who initiated a revival of the study of St. Thomas Aquinas. His 1879 encyclical “Aeterni Patris” began a renewal and recovery of the importance of the thought of St. Thomas for seminarians and Catholic education more generally. The Second Vatican Council, the “Code of Canon Law,” and the “Program of Priestly Formation” all assert the unique and privileged role of St. Thomas in the practice of Catholic theology. Each of these expressions of Catholic teaching and practice reflect the influence of Leo XIII.
Of course, the reasons for the choice of a papal name are both personal and complex. For Pope Leo XIV, a son of St. Augustine and therefore steeped in the history of the Fathers of the Church, I suspect the important place of Pope Leo the Great (391-461) is not lost on the present Holy Father. Nonetheless, attention to the immediate predecessor who took the name Leo may offer some insight into the priorities and vision of the one who now occupies the Chair of St. Peter.
Father Ryan W. Connors, S.T.D., is the rector of Our Lady of Providence Seminary.
