Meet Leo XIII: What’s in a name?

[what the last Pope Leo may suggest about the latest]

I don’t want to make too much of this. While the papal name “Leo” was last chosen almost 150 years ago, in 1878, in retrospect it was possibly the most likely regnal name for any cardinal succeeding to Pope Francis. I wouldn’t be surprised if half the papabili open to accepting selection by the conclave were batting around Leo if the ballots went their way.

Why is that? Let’s review the history. Indulge me a bit.

To begin with, clearly the world isn’t ready for Francis II! Pope Francis’s electrifying, iconoclastic 12-year reign is way too fresh. For that matter, even though Pope St. John Paul II died 20 years ago, we’re still processing the truly revolutionary implications of his 27-year reign as well as his rapid ascent to canonization. John Paul III, as much as Francis II, would feel like hubris for now. Conversely, Benedict XVI’s resignation means it will probably be a long time before anyone reaches for that name again.

John Paul II, along with his short-lived predecessor John Paul I (d. 1978), took the combined names of their immediate predecessors, Paul VI (d. 1978) and John XXIII (d. 1963). These names—the names of the two popes of the Second Vatican Council—are viable papal names, and the two most likely alternatives of Leo. Both popes are respected and popular; both are also canonized saints.

What if a newly elected pope wanted a regnal name that wasn’t Francis or Benedict and whose last papal bearer wasn’t a canonized saint? Other than Leo XIII (d. 1903), every pope going back almost 180 years is named Pius (Pius XII, Pius XI, Pius X, and Pius IX)—and the name Pius has problems. Beyond the dubious optics today of reverential names like “Pius” and “Innocent,” the most recent Pope Pius, Pius XII (d. 1958), is controversial due to allegations that he didn’t do or say enough during World War II to defend Jews from the Third Reich. No Pius XIII seems likely in any foreseeable timeline.

Going further back, we have Gregory XVI (d. 1846), noted for condemning the slave trade, but also for his anti-democratic views; more Piuses; and then Clement XIV (d. 1774). Clement is a possibility for some future pope: a pleasant name (meaning “peaceful”) and not a bad guy (notable, among other things, for refuting false charges against Jewish communities). And before Clement XIV, frankly, are names that haven’t been chosen in centuries with good reason!¹

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Still and all, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost chose Leo, and not John or Paul or Clement. These were not his only options; following the untraditional choices of Francis and the John Pauls, the first US pope could have made an untraditional choice of his own: for example, a name like Joseph, Anthony, or Maximilian.

Within seconds of the announcement his election, of course, began the global mad scramble to mine Wikipedia, social media, and other online sources for tea leaves on what the reign of Pope Leo XIV may look like. While this is understandable and, indeed, inevitable, for Catholics there is a spiritual danger in sizing up the new successor to Saint Peter like bettors at a racetrack evaluating the latest winning horse, or even like constituents rating a winning politician, all based on our own preferred criteria and how this bodes for our own preferred vision of the Church in the world. The pope is our pastor and teacher, our shepherd and guide; he is also the visible source of the unity of the Church and of all her shepherds. This doesn’t mean any pope is beyond criticism. But it means something that he is the pope and we are not.²

I made a point in the days leading up to the conclave of avoiding online articles about various papabili and their purported strengths or weaknesses. When the white smoke on Thursday afternoon was followed by the announcement of the election of Cardinal Prevost, while I knew who he was, I knew far less about him than I did about the regnal name he chose. Leo is a very good name and one with promise for the kind of pontiff that Pope Francis’s successor may be.

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Pope Leo XIII was born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci, and lived from 1810 to 1903. Coming between two popes named Pius, he presents a contrast to both of them. Neither Pius IX nor St. Pius X was a scholar, and both are noted for reactionary, basically hostile perspectives toward the modern world, seen fundamentally through the philosophical lens of modernism in a sense that encompasses rationalism, skepticism, and subjectivism—what Pius X condemned as “the synthesis of all heresies.” Leo XIII stands out for his intellectualism and his appreciation of scholarship, along with his less confrontational, more constructive style of engagement with modernity, including changing political and economic realities and scientific progress.

Doctrinally and spiritually, Leo XIII was a traditionalist. He presided over a revival of Thomistic theology, wrote an astonishing 11 encyclicals on Marian piety and the Rosary (earning the nickname “the Rosary Pope”), and composed the popular Saint Michael prayer. It’s been suggested that he had a hand in drafting Pius IX’s 1864 Syllabus of Errors condemning various facets of modernism. (Interestingly for the choice of his name by the first U.S. pope, Leo XIII also condemned “Americanism” in the sense of the adaptation of Catholicism to American values.)

What Leo XIII is best known for are two landmark encyclicals with great significance for the Church’s stance toward the modern world: Rerum Novarum (1891), which laid the foundations for Catholic social teaching in a modern economic context; and Providentissimus Deus (1893), which addressed the challenges of modern biblical scholarship.

Subtitled “On the conditions of labor,” Rerum Novarum is concerned with the challenges and the rights of workers, and rejects what Leo XIII saw as the excesses both of socialism and unrestricted capitalism. Rerum Novarum upholds the right of private property, the right of workers to form labor unions—an application of the principle of solidarity, or cooperative responsibility for the common good—and the complementary principle of subsidiarity, i.e., the priority of the family and local communities over the state, which should not intervene except where families and local communities are unable to meet their needs or obligations. The social teachings of Rerum Novarum have been developed and reiterated by later popes in anniversary documents with names like Quadragesimo anno (1931, Pius XI) and Centesimus annus (1991, John Paul II).

Providentissimus Deus is fundamentally concerned with defending the authority of the scriptures and rejecting rationalist reductionism. At the same time, it acknowledged that the biblical writers used their own faculties and styles, noted the use of figurative language and the non-scientific interest of the sacred writers, and cautiously allowed exegetes to depart from the “literal and obvious” sense of the text when reason makes this sense “untenable.” In 1892 Leo sanctioned the work of the École Biblique in Jerusalem studying archaeology and Biblical exegesis, and in 1902 he created the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

In addition to promoting biblical studies, in 1881 Leo XIII opened the Vatican Secret Archives to scholars of all confessions, an expression of confidence in the value of scholarship. He also authorized the Catholic University of America in 1887 and re-founded the Vatican Observatory in 1891. He encouraged the studies of history, archaeology, and the natural sciences.

Leo XIII was a committed ecumenist, particularly toward the East. He was also a better diplomat than his predecessor, beginning his reign with friendly letters to world leaders, negotiating with Otto von Bismarck of Prussia to end the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf that began during his predecessor’s reign, and supporting the French Republic.³

Elected at an advanced age and in delicate health, Leo XIII was thought likely to have a short reign after his controversial predecessor, whose reign was the longest in history. Instead, Leo XIII lived to the age of 93, the oldest pope ever,⁴ with a reign almost as long as that of Pius IX. (John Paul II’s reign was longer than Leo XIII’s, but Pius IX still holds the record.)

As a film writer, I have long appreciated the fact that Leo XIII was the first pope, and perhaps the earliest born Italian, to be captured on film, and a series of brief clips made the 1890s can still be seen today on YouTube.⁵ These short films were played in New York, Boston and Chicago, giving many American Catholics their first-ever glimpse of a pope in action.

1. There’s Innocent (XII, d. 1691), already discussed, and Alexander VIII (d. 1691), known for his charitable efforts but also his nepotism. Urban (VIII, 1694) isn’t a particularly appealing name today, nor is Sixtus (V, d. 1585, and I’m having a hard time imagining the man who decides the Church really needs a Pope Six Six). Julius III (d. 1555) is known for nepotism and scandal. Before and after him were the last two popes who used their baptismal names: Marcellus II (d. 1555) and Adrian VI (d. 1523). I have some affection for Adrian not only as the last non-Italian pope before John Paul II, but also as the only Dutch pope (my family heritage is Dutch).

2. What it means, among other things, is that Catholics owe the pope filial respect, docility, and religious submission of mind and will. How exactly that works with him not being beyond criticism is … too big a topic for me to address here and now, but the bottom line is that too many American Catholics view the Church’s pastors through the lens of their own partisan preferences rather than trying to measure themselves by the teaching and guidance of our pastors.

3. As a diplomat Leo XIII made no progress on the “Roman Question” regarding the pope’s temporal power following the Italian Risorgimento, the loss of the papal states, and the pope’s status as a “prisoner in the Vatican.” This issue was eventually resolved with the Lateran Treaty of 1929, which recognized Vatican City as an independent state.

4. Though, as my friend

Peter T Chattaway

noted in a comment, Benedict XVI, after resigning from the papacy in 2013 at the age of 85, lived to be 95.

5. Though added titles credit these surviving film clips to Lumière technician Vittorio Calcina in 1896, both the name and the date appear to be incorrect. Pope Leo XIII was filmed in 1898 by American cinema pioneer W. K. L. Dickson, who came to the Vatican bearing references from prominent U.S. prelates and returned to the States bringing American Catholics unpredecented visions of the pontiff raising his hand in blessing. It looks like Italian archivists credited one of their own rather than an American with the historically valuable footage.