(RNS) — In taking the title Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost — Father Bob to American Catholics and Padre Roberto to his Peruvian flock — linked his preach to a monumental determine, Pope Leo XIII, the Catholic Church’s first fashionable pope, who reigned skillfully from 1878 to 1903.
Leo XIII is finest often called the daddy of Catholic social instructing, codified in his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (“On Capital and Labor”), which makes a Christian case for staff’ rights to honest wages and unions whereas defending personal property.
However this dynamic pope — early movie footage from 1896 exhibits an lively, albeit diminutive, man, standing simply 5-foot 2 — additionally made fascinating contributions as a theologian, mystic and diplomat, with a cautious eye on American expansionism.
When Leo XIII took workplace in 1878, the Vatican was engaged in a tense stand-off with the Italian authorities. The Italian navy had overrun Rome in 1871, seizing papal property and declaring Rome the capital of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy.
As his predecessor, Pope Pius IX, did, Leo XIII promptly locked himself within the Apostolic Palace and described himself as its keen prisoner, ready for Rome to be restored to the Vatican.
With out bodily territory to handle (and for hundreds of years, the Papal States coated Italy’s complete midsection, offering financial advantages however administrative complications), the pope had extra time to suppose, write and pray. He issued an astonishing 85 encyclicals in his 25-year reign. They made inventive contributions to the world of concepts.
The encyclical “Aeterni Patris” (“On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy,” 1879) restored the status of St. Thomas Aquinas, making the angelic physician’s theology and philosophy the touchstone — and new measuring stick — for contemporary Catholic thought. With Thomism formally elevated and endorsed, the church regained entry to an unlimited retailer of knowledge that turned a versatile interpretative key for a lot of social dilemmas, together with slavery, scientific breakthroughs and industrial relations.
In 1888, Leo XIII wrote a transferring encyclical to bishops in Brazil, “In Plurimis” (“Amid the Many”), relating to the pressing must abolish slavery as soon as and for all. He defined slavery as a consequence of sin, violating the equality all individuals have earlier than God. It marked the primary time the church publicly declared its assist for abolitionism. (Brazil formally outlawed slavery that yr.)
“Rerum Novarum,” which retains its pressure at the moment, demonstrates nice sympathy for the plight of the working poor, with out advocating for both socialism or unfettered capitalism. It additionally maintains an activist stance, urging Catholics to get entangled in efforts in opposition to injustice. The Catholic Church has persistently carried out its mission, particularly in Latin America, on the behest of the area’s bishops, together with the person who would change into Leo XIV.
Throughout his missionary work in Peru, between 1985 and 1998, then-Father Prevost lived via an financial and political disaster (together with terrorism) that created in depth poverty and unemployment. Upon his return in 2018, when he turned apostolic administrator and bishop, the financial image had improved, however wealth disparity remained problematic.
However Leo XIII was greater than a theologian and reformer. He skilled on the Vatican’s diplomatic college, based in 1701. It’s the world’s oldest academy devoted to diplomacy. He served as nuncio (ambassador) to Belgium between 1843 and 1846.
As soon as the Vatican misplaced its geographic footprint, Leo XIII institutionalized its impartiality to leverage the church’s distinctive potential to mediate battle. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, a Protestant, requested that Leo arbitrate a dispute between Germany and Spain over the Caroline Islands. The disagreement was amicably solved with the pope’s assist in 1885.
The next yr, the Chinese language emperor reached out to the pope, all for opening direct diplomatic relations. Though France intervened to derail the relationship, a remark in a Chinese language newspaper on the time illuminates what made the Vatican engaging: “Because the pope has no troops and no territory, however is merely a form of Dalai Lama, there isn’t a hazard to China from opening direct relations with him. The affairs of the missionaries can then be handled in an open and easy method, as no concern of political traps will lurk behind.”
Even Tsar Nicholas II, who had a consultant on the papal courtroom, appealed to the Holy See for assist with the 1898 Hague Peace Congress.
On his personal account, Leo XIII was extremely conscious of the USA and its march towards international energy.
Throughout the Spanish-American Conflict, fought in 1898 in each the Caribbean and Asia, the U.S. pressured the top of virtually 400 years of Spanish presence. The U.S. took management of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines whereas establishing a protectorate over Cuba.
Thus, within the Catholic-majority nations, U.S. navy energy immediately confronted church leaders, properties, colleges and spiritual orders. The U.S. growth had a powerful anti-Catholic dimension. Leo met personally on the Vatican with William Howard Taft, then the appointed American governor-general within the Philippines and future president, denying U.S. requests to purchase land from Catholic non secular orders.
Leo XIII’s papacy marks the start of Vatican misery and opposition to US navy overreach removed from its homeland. How will his successor and namesake, Pope Leo XIV, deal with related challenges? Will he have the energy and independence to face as much as his countrymen?
If the brand new Leo seeks inspiration to face as much as the worldwide superpower, he solely has to seek the advice of the previous Leo.
Leo XIII composed the St. Michael Prayer after a disturbing imaginative and prescient he had whereas saying Mass. Particulars of the imaginative and prescient differ, however it scared the pope and led him not solely to compose the prayer, in all probability in 1884, however then to press clergymen worldwide to say the prayer after each Mass, which occurred extensively till the Second Vatican Council.
St. Michael the Archangel battles Devil within the New Testomony’s Ebook of Revelations, efficiently casting the satan and his demons into hell. Devotion to this angel stretches again to Emperor Constantine within the fourth century.
Leo’s prayer is fierce; Catholic exorcists nonetheless suggest that anybody combating evil of their lives recite it. More and more, around the globe, this prayer is being recited after Mass ends:
Saint Michael Archangel,
defend us in battle,
be our safety in opposition to the wickedness and snares of the satan;
might God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the ability of God, forged into hell
Devil and all of the evil spirits
who prowl via the world in search of the destroy of souls.
Amen.
Could 8, the day Pope Leo XIV’s election was introduced, can also be the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel.
The brand new pope appeared to discuss with this prayer in his first speech to the world when he proclaimed, “God loves us, God loves you all and evil is not going to prevail!”
(Victor Gaetan, a senior correspondent for the Nationwide Catholic Register, is the creator of “God’s Diplomats: Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy, and America’s Armageddon” and a contributor to Overseas Affairs journal. The views expressed on this commentary don’t essentially replicate these of RNS.)
