Leo XIII

Pope Leo XIII (Italian: Leone XIII; born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 1878 until his death in 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign and third-longest verified reign of any pope, behind those of St. Peter, Pius IX (his predecessor), and John Paul II.

Born in Carpineto Romano, near Rome, Leo XIII is well known for his intellectualism and for seeking to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. Pope Leo XIII wrote a total of 86 encyclicals during his papacy from 1878 to 1903. In his 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, Pope Leo outlined the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of trade unions, while affirming the rights to property and free enterprise, opposing both atheistic communism and laissez-faire capitalism. With that encyclical, Leo XIII became popularly called the "Social Pope" and the "Pope of the Workers", also having created the foundations for modern thinking in the social doctrines of the Catholic Church, influencing his successors. He influenced the Mariology of the Catholic Church and promoted both the rosary and the scapular. Upon his election, he immediately sought to revive Thomism, the theological system of Thomas Aquinas, wishing to make it the official political, theological, and philosophical foundation of the Catholic Church. As a result, he sponsored the Editio Leonina in 1879.

Leo XIII is remembered for his belief that pastoral activity in political sociology is also a vital mission of the church as a vehicle of social justice and maintaining the rights and dignity of the human person. He issued a record eleven papal encyclicals on the rosary, earning him the title "Rosary Pope". He also approved two new Marian scapulars. He was the first pope never to have held any control over the Papal States, which had been dissolved by 1870, since Stephen II in the 8th century. Similarly, many of his policies were oriented toward mitigating the loss of the Papal States in an attempt to overcome the loss of temporal power, but nonetheless continuing the Roman Question.