(RNS) — In taking the name Leo XIV, Cardinal Robert Prevost — Father Bob to American Catholics and Padre Roberto to his Peruvian flock — linked his pontificate to a monumental figure, Pope Leo XIII, the Catholic Church’s first modern pope, who reigned skillfully from 1878 to 1903.
Leo XIII is best known as the father of Catholic social teaching, codified in his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (“On Capital and Labor”), which makes a Christian case for workers’ rights to fair wages and unions while defending private property.
But this dynamic pope — early film footage from 1896 shows an energetic, albeit diminutive, man, standing just 5-foot 2 — also made fascinating contributions as a theologian, mystic and diplomat, with a wary eye on American expansionism.
When Leo XIII took office in 1878, the Vatican was engaged in a tense stand-off with the Italian government. The Italian military 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 in the Apostolic Palace and described himself as its willing prisoner, waiting for Rome to be restored to the Vatican.
Without physical territory to manage (and for centuries, the Papal States covered Italy’s entire midsection, providing economic benefits but administrative headaches), the pope had more time to think, write and pray. He issued an astonishing 85 encyclicals in his 25-year reign. They made creative contributions to the world of ideas.
The encyclical “Aeterni Patris” (“On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy,” 1879) restored the prestige of St. Thomas Aquinas, making the angelic doctor’s theology and philosophy the touchstone — and new measuring stick — for modern Catholic thought. With Thomism officially elevated and endorsed, the church regained access to a vast store of wisdom that became a flexible interpretative key for many social dilemmas, including slavery, scientific breakthroughs and industrial relations.
In 1888, Leo XIII wrote a moving encyclical to bishops in Brazil, “In Plurimis” (“Amid the Many”), regarding the urgent need to abolish slavery once and for all. He explained slavery as a consequence of sin, violating the equality all people have before God. It marked the first time the church publicly declared its support for abolitionism. (Brazil officially outlawed slavery that year.)
“Rerum Novarum,” which retains its force today, demonstrates great sympathy for the plight of the working poor, without advocating for either socialism or unfettered capitalism. It also maintains an activist stance, urging Catholics to get involved in efforts against injustice. The Catholic Church has consistently carried out its mission, especially in Latin America, at the behest of the region’s bishops, including the man who would become Leo XIV.
During his missionary work in Peru, between 1985 and 1998, then-Father Prevost lived through an economic and political crisis (including terrorism) that created extensive poverty and unemployment. Upon his return in 2018, when he became apostolic administrator and bishop, the economic picture had improved, but wealth disparity remained problematic.
But Leo XIII was more than a theologian and reformer. He trained at the Vatican’s diplomatic school, founded in 1701. It’s the world’s oldest academy dedicated to diplomacy. He served as nuncio (ambassador) to Belgium between 1843 and 1846.
Once the Vatican lost its geographic footprint, Leo XIII institutionalized its impartiality to leverage the church’s unique ability to mediate conflict. 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 help in 1885.
The following year, the Chinese emperor reached out to the pope, interested in opening direct diplomatic relations. Although France intervened to derail the relationship, a comment in a Chinese newspaper at the time illuminates what made the Vatican attractive: “As the pope has no troops and no territory, but is merely a kind of Dalai Lama, there is no danger to China from opening direct relations with him. The affairs of the missionaries can then be dealt with in an open and straightforward manner, as no fear of political traps will lurk behind.”
Even Tsar Nicholas II, who had a representative at the papal court, appealed to the Holy See for help with the 1898 Hague Peace Congress.
On his own account, Leo XIII was highly aware of the United States and its march toward global power.
During the Spanish-American War, fought in 1898 in both the Caribbean and Asia, the U.S. forced the end of almost 400 years of Spanish presence. The U.S. took control of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines while establishing a protectorate over Cuba.
Thus, in the Catholic-majority countries, U.S. military power directly confronted church leaders, properties, schools and religious orders. The U.S. expansion had a strong anti-Catholic dimension. Leo met personally at the Vatican with William Howard Taft, then the appointed American governor-general in the Philippines and future president, denying U.S. requests to buy land from Catholic religious orders.
Leo XIII’s papacy marks the beginning of Vatican distress and opposition to US military overreach far from its homeland. How will his successor and namesake, Pope Leo XIV, handle similar challenges? Will he have the strength and independence to stand up to his countrymen?
If the new Leo seeks inspiration to stand up to the global superpower, he only has to consult the old Leo.
Leo XIII composed the St. Michael Prayer after a disturbing vision he had while saying Mass. Details of the vision vary, but it scared the pope and led him not only to compose the prayer, probably in 1884, but then to press priests worldwide to say the prayer after every Mass, which occurred widely until the Second Vatican Council.
St. Michael the Archangel battles Satan in the New Testament’s Book of Revelations, successfully casting the devil and his demons into hell. Devotion to this angel stretches back to Emperor Constantine in the fourth century.
Leo’s prayer is fierce; Catholic exorcists still recommend that anyone combating evil in their lives recite it. Increasingly, around the world, this prayer is being recited after Mass ends:
Saint Michael Archangel,
defend us in battle,
be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil;
may God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
by the power of God, cast into hell
Satan and all the evil spirits
who prowl through the world seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
May 8, the day Pope Leo XIV’s election was announced, is also the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel.
The new pope seemed to refer to this prayer in his first speech to the world when he proclaimed, “God loves us, God loves you all and evil will not prevail!”
(Victor Gaetan, a senior correspondent for the National Catholic Register, is the author of “God’s Diplomats: Pope Francis, Vatican Diplomacy, and America’s Armageddon” and a contributor to Foreign Affairs magazine. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
