Pope Leo XIII and the Rosary

Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) wrote more encyclicals than any other pontiff (including Pope John Paul II). And the topic on which he wrote more than any other was the rosary, eleven altogether. In 1883, he established October as the month dedicated to the Holy Rosary by Pope Leo XIII. In Supremi Apostolatus Officio (September 1, 1883), he writes:

We earnestly exhort all Christians to give themselves to the recital of the pious devotion of the Rosary publicly, or privately in their own house and family, and that unceasingly, but we also desire that the whole of the month of October in this year should be consecrated to the Holy Queen of the Rosary. We decree and order that in the whole Catholic world, during this year, the devotion of the Rosary shall be solemnly celebrated by special and splendid services. From the first day of next October, therefore, until the second day of the November following, in every parish and, if the ecclesiastical authority deem it opportune and of use, in every chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin—let five decades of the Rosary be recited with the addition of the Litany of Loreto.