Pope Leo XIII
Leo XIII, né Gioacchino Pecci (March 2, 1810 - July 20, 1903) was Pope from 1878 to 1903.
Pope Leo XIII
Supreme Pontiff (1878-1903)
Born March 2, 1810 in Carpineto, Italy, Pecci first achieved note as the popular and successful Archbishop of Perugia, which led to his appointment as a Cardinal in 1853. On February 20 1878, he was elected to succeed Pope Pius IX.
Leo worked to encourage understanding between the Church and the modern world. He firmly re-asserted the Scholastic doctrine that science and religion co-exist, and required the study of St. Thomas Aquinas. [1] He encouraged openness and discourse, opening the Vatican archives to historians and creating a number of institutions of higher learning. Leo was also the first Pope to come out strongly in favour of the French Republic, upsetting many French monarchists but also proving that the Church was not entirely reactionary. His relations with the Italian state were less progressive. Leo continued the Papacy's self-imposed incarceration in the Vatican and continued to insist that Italian Catholics should not vote in Italian elections or hold elected office. He is most famous for his economic teachings, in which he argued the flaws of capitalism and communism. His Encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891, on the rights and duties of capital and labor, introduced the idea of subsidiarity into Catholic social thought. In 1896 he wrote a famous bull saying that the ordinations of deacons, priests, and bishops in Anglican churches, including the Church of England, are not valid. The Catholic church recognizes the validity of ordinations in the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches. Leo also condemned Freemasonry.
Leo awarded a gold medal [2]to a fashionable nineteenth century cocaine-based drink called Vin Mariani, which was also praised and used by among others Queen Victoria and Leo's successor as pope, St. Pius X.
Leo was the first Pope of whom a sound recording was made. The recording could be found on a CD of Alessandro Moreschi's singing.
Under Leo XIII religious orders grew in number and membership, and many new apostolic sees were created. After his death on July 20, 1903, Leo was succeeded by Pope Pius X.