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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Leo XIII Biography LEO XIII (Pope, 1878-1903). Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaello Luigi Pecci. He was born in the ancestral seat of his family at Carpineto, 37 miles from Rome, March 2, 1810, and educated in the Jesuit college at Viterbo and the Collegio Romano, making further studies in law and theology after taking his doctor's degree from the latter. He was ordained priest and made a domestic prelate by Gregory XVI in 1837. As delegate successively at Benevento, Spoleto, and Perugia, he displayed great energy, and was especially successful in the task of suppressing brigandage. In 1843 he was made Archbishop of Damietta in partibus, and sent as Nuncio to Brussels, where he exercised a powerful influence in the support of the Church against secularist attacks. At the end of 1845 he was recalled to undertake the administration of the see of Perugia, and made his entry there the following summer amid universal rejoicing. He ruled his diocese with great zeal, promoted education, and cared for the material wants of the poor by founding monti di pietà (loan associations under ecclesiastical direction). The year of revolutions (1848) brought many troubles to the Church in Perugia as elsewhere, which were met by the Archbishop with increased zeal and devotion. His services were recognized by Pope Pius IX, who made him Cardinal in 1853, carrying out an intention expressed by Gregory XVI before his death. He was not, however, prominent in the papal councils, being supposed to be hardly a persona grata to the powerful Antonelli. He continued his labors at Perugia under difficulties which increased after the annexation of Umbria to the dominions of Victor Emmanuel in 1860 and the promulgation of numerous laws inimical to religious interests. He raised his voice in energetic protest against what he considered the spoliation of the Church and against tampering with the law of marriage and declined to join in a public reception to Victor Emmanuel when he visited Perugia. In 1877 he was brought to Rome to fill the important office of Cardinal Camerlengo, and a few months later, on the death of Pius IX, was called upon to perform the administrative functions attached to it during a vacancy in the holy see. On Feb. 20, 1878, he was chosen to fill the vacancy, taking the title of Leo XIII in imitation of the Pope of his boyhood. The combined learning, holiness, and statesmanlike sagacity displayed by him made his long, almost unprecedented reign one of the most notable in the recent history of the Church. The great causes to which he devoted the last quarter century of his life are best marked by the numerous well-considered encyclicals in which he spoke through the Catholic hierarchy to the world. His first dealt with the study of theology and commended the system of St. Thomas Aquinas, the study of whose works he did all in his power to encourage, regarding it as the best means of meeting the difficulties of modern philosophy. In later ones he dealt acutely and broadly with social questions, the famous Rerum Novarum of 1891 being regarded as going a long way to meet the claims of modern socialism. Those on Christian marriage (1880) and on Freemasonry (1881) were more on traditional lines; but one which commended the diligent study of the Bible (1893) and those of 1894 and 1896 on the reunion of Christendom were of a nature to surprise and conciliate those who had no accurate knowledge of the teaching of the Roman Catholic church. The restoration of Christian unity had always been specially near his heart. He displayed a particular interest in the English-speaking race, addressing a letter ad Anglos in 1894; and the decision of the commission which in 1896 pronounced that Anglican ordinations were invalid had an important bearing on the attitude of the High Church party towards Rome. His recognition of the importance of this race, especially in the New World, was rnarked by the establishment of a permanent representative in the United States and one in Canada who were responsible immediately to him. He maintained unwaveringly the attitude of his predecessor towards the Italian government, considering it as a usurper in Rome and himself as a prisoner in the Vatican. Elsewhere his general policy was to support existing governments whenever they stood for law and order. Thus, though with some difficulty, he persuaded French Catholics to support the Republic; and he condemned the Nationalist plan of campaign in Ireland. The Kulturkampf (q.v.) waged by the Prussian government against the holy see was brought to a close in 1887, the papacy issuing from it triumphant. Leo XIII reëstablished the ancient hierarchy of Scotland in 1878, and also established one in India. His constant efforts were devoted to the promotion of peace in the temporal order throughout the world; in 1885 he was able to secure it in a definite case by acting as arbitrator in the dispute which arose between Germany and Spain concerning the Caroline Islands. His life was of the simplest and most abstemious description, which doubtless had much to do with its prolongation. His interest in science and literature was always great, and marked, e.g., by the provision of large sums for the Vatican Observatory. In 1883 he threw open the Vatican archives to all properly qualified scholars, expressing the conviction that the Church had nothing to fear from the study of the facts of history. His Latin style is of a high order, both in prose and verse; the composition of Latin poetry was one of his favorite relaxations. He died July 20, 1903: His pontificate was one of the longest in history, its silver jubilee having been celebrated on March 3, 1903. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 778-779. |