Behold: The Thirteen Pope Leo's

When Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected to the office of the papacy not long ago, he took the name of Leo, the fourteenth successor of St. Peter. Our new pope did not specify which of his thirteen predecessors was predominant in his choice. Later, it appeared that he had Leo XIII in mind; Catholic school students years ago learned that Leo XIII had written Rerum Novarum, the encyclical remembered for its defense of the working man and the Church’s first modern foray into what we refer to in this age as “social justice.”
 
Before I jump into the procession of Leonine popes, I need to remind myself that the history of the Church is unimaginably complex. Even the geography of Christianity is diverse. The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles are clear that the Church, as a structured community, developed its first generation in Jerusalem. It was not until c. 50 A.D. that the Church became missionary, as we see in the Scriptural letters of St. Paul. Paul’s efforts to convert the world to Christ took him to Greece and Rome, setting the table for new centers of pastoral leadership to emerge in Rome, Athens, Byzantium [modern Istanbul], and Alexandria, Egypt.
 
While Rome would eventually hold a spiritual preeminence because it was the resting place of the bones of St. Peter, each of these major cities enjoyed a preeminence in their region, and most of those regions were Greek-speaking and Greek thinking, as opposed to the more barebones Latin West, specifically the Italian peninsula. By the time of the first bishop of Rome named Leo, 440 A.D., the Roman Empire itself had moved its base and its military east to Byzantium, renaming the city Constantinople after the famous emperor who had legalized Christianity a century before. Rome was rapidly decaying and was in fact sacked by Alaric and the Visigoths in 410, unable to defend itself militarily. Nor was the Latin western half of the empire contributing much to the formulation of the Christian Creed; the bishop of Rome did not attend the Council of Nicaea in 325 but sent a deacon to represent him.
 
The time was more than ripe for a Western Christian voice to join the Greek-speaking and Greek philosophizing Church Fathers in the formulation of the Church’s repository of Faith. Which brings us to…
 
Leo I [r. 440-461 A.D.]  If you are looking for an answer to the question of which Pope Leo was the most important in the history of the Church, you would have to say the first Leo. The Catholic Church’s full title for him is St. Leo the Great, Doctor of the Church. He was an aristocrat, a man of deep faithfulness to the Christian Church, a student of philosophy and theology, and a competent civil manager, no small credential for a time when Rome was falling into the Dark Ages. He brought his own name into the office of Bishop of Rome [Leo, as you might have guessed, means “Lion” in Latin]. He served as a deacon to his bishop before his own popular election in 440, and his wisdom and theological acumen became known to his Greek peers to the East.
 
The Greek Church fathers, having established that Jesus is God and that God is Triune or Trinity, were now debating the internal life of Jesus. Put simply—much more simply than the major players of that day—what was an accurate rendering of Jesus’ psyche? Did He think like a man or like God? Did his divine nature trump his humanity? Given his divine nature, was death even possible for Jesus? As Bishop of Rome, Leo followed these discussions which were now coming to debate in the Council of Chalcedon [451 A.D.] He offered for consideration one of Christianity’s most famous texts, The Tome of Leo. In his offering, Leo essentially set the outer limits on much one can know, and how far one can speculate the question of Jesus’ two natures.
 
Leo stated that the humanity and the divinity of Jesus were/are perfectly compatible. Going farther was to say more than the Scriptures themselves revealed. Speculation on the experience of Jesus was to question the very nature of the Incarnation; in short, it was heresy. Chalcedon accepted his teaching, and the creedal beliefs of the Holy Trinity were enshrined for all time. There is considerable irony that a Latin Westerner would put the exclamation point on four centuries of primarily Greek theological speculation. In doing so, Leo I salvaged something of the authority and respect for the Chair of Rome in its darkest days. His diplomatic skills came into play for another purpose entirely. He was successful in persuading Attila the Hun, and three years later the Vandals, from sacking and destroying the northern regions of Italy.
 
Leo II: [r. 682-683] Leo was possibly from Sicily; in the seventh century the Sicilian Island was under attack by Islamic forces, and many clergy fled to the relative safety of Rome. Leo’s installation was held up for nearly a year, awaiting the approval of the Byzantine Emperor. Wikipedia defines the years 537 to 752 as the era of the Byzantine Papacy, “when popes required the approval of the Byzantine Emperor for their episcopal consecration…” The East-West differences evident in Leo I’s reign [above] were much more significant by Leo II’s time. The pope himself was a man of distinguished charity who fought to maintain fidelity to the earlier Credal formula, particularly Chalcedon. His reign, sadly, lasted but a year.
 
Leo III: [r. 795-816] The third Leo is a major figure in Church History. Unlike Leo the Great, whose major contribution was doctrinal, Leo III’s lasting influence was/is political: his actions created the union of the Western secular world with the Church world, creating “The Holy Roman Empire,” the marriage of church and state. If you teach or study Church History, you have probably seen authors debate the church-state issues from both sides, i.e., how much relationship between the Church and worldly culture, notably political policy, is a good thing? There are rich and influential Catholics today [see the Napa Valley Summer Institutes] who long for a return to Christendom on earth.
 
Leo III’s election to the papacy in 795 was not welcomed by his predecessor’s followers, who tried to rip out his tongue and blind him. Leo escaped to the shelter of the one man who enjoyed success in uniting large tracts of land in Western Europe as a counterweight to the Byzantine East. Charlemagne helped Leo to restore order and papal holdings on the Italian peninsula. In return, Leo famously crowned Charlemagne emperor of the Holy Roman Empire on Christmas Day, 800. Together the Emperor and the Pope would work for the advancement of temporal and spiritual goods.
 
How large was the Holy Roman Empire? For most of its history the Empire comprised the entirety of the modern countries of Germany, Czechia, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Slovenia, and Luxembourg, most of north-central Italy, and large parts of modern-day east France and west Poland. It finally dissolved in 1806 in Napoleon’s time. Of course, this union was not a perfect weave by any stretch of the imagination, but it ended the dominance of Eastern Christianity over the West and led to the formal break of Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1054.
 
Leo IV: [r. 847-855] Leo IV is remembered for repairing Roman churches that had been damaged during the Arab raid against Rome, and for building the Leonine Wall around Vatican Hill to protect the city. He organized a league of Italian cities who fought and won the sea Battle of Ostia against the Saracens. For centuries after his death the rumor circulated that his successor was “Pope Joan,” a woman disguised as a cleric. However, historians have discredited the tale.
 
Leo V: [r. 903-903] One of history’s hard luck stories, Leo V was captured by another Cardinal, Christopher, upon his election and was either murdered or died in prison. Christopher was believed to be the genuine pope for the next year, at least, and listed in the official Church records as such until 1900. Today Christopher’s papacy is not recognized by the Church, though small comfort to Leo.
 
Leo VI: [r. 928-929] Leo was elected during the saeculum obscurum or dark age/century of the 900’s. The famous historian Will Durant refers to the period from 867 to 1049 as the "nadir of the papacy.” Leo came to the throne through the influence of one Marozia, whose husband had killed Leo’s predecessor. In his one year as pope Leo did conduct administrative matters. He settled disputes and banned castrati from marrying.
 
Leo VII [r. 936-939] Leo VII was something of a welcome break from the conduct of those manipulating the papacy at this time. He was a Benedictine monk who encouraged reform of the German clergy and forbade forced conversions of Jews. A trend we will see over the next several centuries is the model of monastic life invoked as an ideal for the clergy at large.
 
Leo VIII [r. 964-965]   On this pope, I quote from the Vatican 2001 publication Annuario Pontificio:  "At this point, as again in the mid-eleventh century, we come across elections in which problems of harmonizing historical criteria and those of theology and canon law make it impossible to decide clearly which side possessed the legitimacy whose factual existence guarantees the unbroken lawful succession of the Successors of Saint Peter. The uncertainty that in some cases results has made it advisable to abandon the assignation of successive numbers in the list of the Popes.”
 
The problem with Leo VIII is that he took office while his predecessor was still alive, making Leo an antipope. Later, Leo was properly elected. He owed his restoration to the Emperor Otto, and during his brief reign he approved legislation giving emperors rights to intervene in papal elections. However, there is some doubt among historians that Leo wrote these decrees. And, as you probably noticed, despite the recommendation of the Annuario Pontifico, we still number our popes today.
 
Leo IX: [1049-1054] If the previous centuries were not glorious ones for the papacy, Leo IX was a beacon of reform. Born in modern day France, he became a bishop at 25 and embarked upon a reform of the monasteries and the clergy in his area of Toul. He was named pope at age 47 by Emperor Henry III, but he insisted upon a popular election by the people and clergy of Rome. As pope, he addressed the issues of clerical concubinage, simony [buying church positions] and lay investiture, i.e., kings and other royalty selecting and installing clerics to high office…such as Henry’s appointment of Leo to the Chair of Peter! He brought together a standing council of some of the greatest Church minds to address general reform, a body that would evolve into today’s College of Cardinals. Of this group, Britannica writes: “These men succeeded in transforming the papacy from a local Roman institution into an international power. This farsighted and able group was determined to make papal ideology a social reality. The pivotal point in this ideology was the primatial position of the pope as so-called successor of St. Peter—an ecclesiastical expression for papal monarchy.”
 
With this advice ringing in his ears. Leo’s attention turned East to relations with the Greeks. Leo understood the papacy as a universal governing position, which meant that he needed the submission of the Greek Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius. Leo dispatched Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople to obtain the Patriarch’s oath of submission to the Roman pontiff. Cerularius refused, and again in the words of Britannica, “On July 16, 1054, in the full view of the congregation, Humbert put the papal bull of excommunication—already prepared before the legation left Rome—on the altar of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Thereupon the patriarch excommunicated the legation and its supporters. This marked the final breach between Rome and Constantinople. This schism was to last, with short interruptions, until the modern age.”
 
In summary, the official break of the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches dates to Leo IX, though Leo was dead three months before the dramatic scene in Hagia Sophia.
 
Leo X: [r. 1513-1521] I was hunting around for sources on this Medici pope who succeeded Julius II, a Borgia. Surprisingly, there are several books on Leo X listed on Amazon. Most appear to be defenses of him written by Catholics years removed from the events of his times. The objective treatments of Leo appear in respected historical texts of this era; my “desk copy” of Leo and his times is Reformations: The Early Modern World 1450-1650 [2016, Yale University Press].
 
By the time Leo X became pope, Columbus had been to America four times, the printing press was revolutionizing the exchange of ideas, and Western Europe was in the pleasures of the Renaissance. The Renaissance looked backward at classical beauty in all the arts. Leo, a peaceful artisan, was a product of the Renaissance who won kudos for his efforts to make Rome a cultural center, including the construction of the new St. Peter’s Basilica we are all familiar with today. To finance this work, Leo authorized a sale of indulgences in Germany.
 
Unfortunately, the Renaissance was a very insular world, too. Leo—and the men who surrounded him—had little sense of the common man’s outrage at the commercialization of the Church and the rage embodied in reform minded thinkers and teachers such as Martin Luther, who nailed his theses of protest during Leo’s reign. In a strange way, Leo is best remembered in history for what he did not do: [1] call a true reform council of the Church, and [2] take Luther seriously.
 
Leo XI: [r. 1605-1605] Leo’s papacy lasted from April 1 to April 27, 1605. His very brief reign occurred forty years after the reform Catholic Council of Trent, and in his brief time he labored to implement those reforms. As AI puts it, “Despite his short reign lasting only 27 days, Pope Leo XI's reforms aimed to enhance governance and address pressing issues within the Church and the broader community. His efforts to reform the electoral process, mediate conflicts, and ease the financial burdens on his subjects reflected his commitment to a more harmonious and effectively governed Church, even amid a turbulent period marked by the Protestant Reformation and other challenges.”
 
Leo XI was a nephew of Leo X and thus chose his papal name to remember his family predecessor. Leo XI died of a cold he apparently caught during the exertions of his papal installation. [The same thing happened to a U.S. president, William Henry Harrison, who died exactly one month after his inauguration in 1841.]
 
Leo XII: [r. 1823-1829] There is considerable irony in the fact that the conclave which elected Leo was told that the candidate was gravely ill. The future Leo XII pulled up his robes to show his ulcerous legs and announced, “You are electing a dead man.” Which is exactly what the conclave was looking for, a place holder after the lengthy reign of Pius VII. In truth, Leo XII [Della Genga prior to his election] had been a handsome and articulate papal diplomat who traveled through the courts of Europe during the dangerous era of the Napoleonic Wars. After his election to the papacy, he proved to be an energetic worker despite his illnesses.
 
There is a significant amount of information about the man and his policies. He was, in today’s parlance, an “ultraconservative” in both his political and magisterial Church teachings. The nineteenth century development of democracies, freedom of conscience, and even medicine [he was rumored, probably falsely, to be an “antivaxxer”] was considered by many churchmen in Rome as threatening the Church’s supreme teaching and governing position. He was deeply engaged in the Spanish-American wars of independence, essentially steering his policies there to those parties loyal to the teachings of the Church.
 
Leo’s reign was an effort to reform society and morals. Wikipedia notes that “[Leo] decreed that a dressmaker who sold low or transparent dresses would incur ipso facto [immediate] excommunication.” He revived medieval restrictions against the Jews on owning property and goods and reinstated the requirement that Jews wear identifying clothing. He was not generally liked by the faithful, who found him a busybody and a nag in his crusade to manage their lives.
 
Leo XIII [r. 1878-1903]: Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci is the fourth longest reigning pope in history; he succeeded the longest, Pius IX. He had the good fortune to present an academic paper to cardinals while still a student and consequently was marked for a church career.
 
Leo XIII’s life is so lengthy and varied that I linked his Wikipedia biography here for greater detail, with a second link to his encyclical against Americanism late in his reign. In truth, Leo had significant interest in the United States, and his famous encyclical on social justice for the working man, Rerum Novarum, was issued simultaneously with labor organizing in the United States. But the millennium-long belief in the union of Church and state, the “Holy Roman Empire” described earlier, still lived in the minds and hopes of popes till the early twentieth century. Leo found America’s separation of church and state a potentially dangerous situation, particularly for Catholic children attending public schools. In 1899 he issued Testem benevolentiae nostrae against “the American Heresy,” in which he warned of what we now call “cafeteria Catholicism,” but in fact few people in the United States even knew of its existence.

The bigger picture of Leo XIII is the peace and tranquility he brought to the Chair of Peter after years of the authoritarian Pius IX. In fairness, Pius suffered the brunt of the Italian Revolution for democracy and independence from clerical hegemony. Pius issued “The Syllabus of Errors” what was basically a condemnation of the Enlightenment and the modern age, and later he summoned the Council Vatican I [1868-1870] at which time the doctrine of Infallibility of the pope was decreed.
 
Leo undoubtedly had a broader world view, having engaged with monarchs and diplomats as far away as England. He had a developing sense of the relationship of business to public life, and much firsthand experience in his dioceses of the need to care for the victims of floods, plagues, homelessness, and even victims of the Mafia. He knew how to work with local officials, no small feat when the population and the new leadership of Italy was decidedly anti-papal. On the spiritual tone of his reign, Leo’s devotion to the Virgin Mary was intense and he advocated frequent recitation of the rosary and the wearing of the scapular. He was the author of the famous prayer to St. Michael the Archangel—recited at the end of every Mass until the 1960’s.
 
I am looking for a full biography written in this century on Leo XIII; such a book, if well done, would double as a history of Catholicism in the nineteenth century. I will keep my eyes open.
 
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How did our new pope, Leo XIV, select his name? There are many who believe he is following the tenets of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in his concern for a just society. But I wouldn’t overlook the first Leo, “The Great,” whose wisdom brought us greater understanding and humility in our following of Christ. When put together, those two popes set out a blueprint to know and love Jesus, and consequently to do his works.