Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903)

Today marks the death of Leo XIII (1878-1903), was born Gioacchino Pecci to a noble family in Carpineto (central Italy) in 1810. He had been a papal diplomat in Belgium and in 1846 was made Archbishop of Perugia. He was made camerlengo in 1876, the person who runs the Church in the interregnum period. (Tradition at that time was that the cardinal camerlengo didn’t get elected pope.) By the time of Pius’ death, there was a feeling among the cardinals that a pope was needed who could take a less condemnatory approach toward the modern world, in a spirit of conciliazione (which doesn’t mean give in on everything). Leo’s greatness lies in his stress on the Church’s teaching role in every aspect of modern life. He wrote more encyclicals than any other pope, 86 in all. Rerum Novarum (1891) laid the foundations for modern Catholic social thought in steering a middle road between the excesses of communism as well as of unbridled capitalism. Aeterni Patris (1879) reinstituted Thomism as the standard for priestly formation. Providentissimus Deus (1893) encouraged Catholic biblical scholarship. He opened the Vatican Archives in 1883. He affirmed the unique character of the Eastern Rite Churches rather than attempting to Latinize. In countries where the Church had suffered (especially France), he encouraged Catholic laymen to work within the existing system to promote the rights of the Church. (Trivia: first pope to be filmed.)