Choosing the name Leo
Once the white smoke arose from the Sistine Chapel on Thursday evening, 8 May, crowds gathered in St Peter’s Square anxious to discover who was to be the next pope. The cardinal protodeacon, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, appeared on the balcony.
He announced the joyful news: Habemus Papam, “We have a Pope”. He then announced that the new pope was Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, and that he had chosen the name Leo XIV.
Each pope chooses a new name when he becomes pope. We might recall that Jesus renamed Simon the fisherman as Peter – the rock. So, the choice of a name is significant. What is in the name, Leo?
Firstly, it is significant that the Holy Father chose a name which has been chosen by many before him. He is the fourteenth pope to choose this name. In comparison, Cardinal Bergoglio chose a completely new name, Francis, clearly uniting himself with the great saint from Assisi.
Pope Leo XIV, therefore, stands in a long line. The first Pope Leo was elected in the year 440. He is one of only three popes with the designation of ‘the Great’, such was his contribution to the Church of his time. He is famously known as the Pope who convinced Attila the Hun not to sack Rome. He led the Church for twenty-one years during a very difficult time as the Roman Empire was disintegrating.
He has been recognised for the spiritual depth with which he approached the pastoral care of his people. He is known for his spiritually profound sermons. He called people to holiness, grounded in the teaching of Sacred Scripture and he possessed an ability to reach the everyday needs and interests of his people.
The last Pope Leo is also an important inspiration to our new pope, and he has said so. He, too, lived in a very difficult time for the Church. He led the Church from 1878 until 1903, again, a long pontificate. The rise of nationalism across Europe at the time was often very antagonistic towards the Church. Pope Leo found himself a virtual “Prisoner of the Vatican”. There was always the prospect that the troops from the newly established Italian state could move in and take over the Vatican at any time.
In this perilous situation Pope Leo XIII wrote to the Catholic world about living the faith in these changed conditions. He is recognised as the first pope to really engage with modernity. He is particularly recognised as laying the foundation for the Church’s social teaching in his landmark 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, ‘On the condition of labour’.
While advancing the rights of workers he was under no illusion about the many dangers of erroneous philosophies current in his day. He promoted the tradition of the Catholic intellectual thought expressed in the great theologian, St Thomas Aquinas.
Pope Leo XIII had great intellectual and diplomatic skills and guided the Church wisely through very turbulent times. He promoted Marian devotion, writing no less than eleven encyclicals on the Rosary. He was very conscious of the reality of the devil and spiritual threats to the Church and composed a prayer that is very familiar to many Catholics, the prayer to St Michael the Archangel.
Our current Pope has these two great popes as models and inspirations to him as he assumes the papacy.
Let us pray for our new Pope, Leo XIV, that his papacy will reflect the qualities of Pope Leo the Great and Pope Leo XIII.