Pope Leo XIII

Life

Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci was born on 2 March 1810 in Carpineto Romano, a small hill town near Rome. Educated by the Jesuits at the Collegio Romano and trained at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, he was ordained a priest in 1837 and rose quickly through the diplomatic ranks of the Papal States, serving as nuncio to Belgium and as Archbishop of Perugia for over thirty years.

Elected Pope on 20 February 1878 at the age of 67, he took the name Leo XIII and went on to govern the universal Church for more than 25 years - the fourth-longest pontificate in history. He inherited a Church reeling from the loss of the Papal States and the bitter aftermath of the First Vatican Council, and he set about restoring its intellectual and moral authority through unprecedented engagement with the modern world.

His 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum laid the foundations of modern Catholic social teaching, defending workers' rights to a just wage, safe conditions, and free association in unions, while equally affirming private property and rejecting both unfettered capitalism and revolutionary socialism. The text remains the charter of Catholic social thought, cited and renewed by every pope since.

Leo XIII was equally a pope of prayer and learning. He produced eleven encyclicals on the Rosary, earning the title 'Rosary Pope', composed the Prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel after a private vision, and consecrated the human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1899. With Aeterni Patris (1879) he restored the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas to the heart of seminary education and Catholic intellectual life.

He opened the Vatican Archives to scholars, refounded the Vatican Observatory, and was the first pope captured on motion-picture film. He died at the Apostolic Palace on 20 July 1903, aged 93. No cause for his canonisation has been opened by the Holy See.