Tag: Octogesima Adveniens

Key predecessors of Leo XIV: Leo XIII, Francis, & John Paul II

Last evening, I was present just outside St. Peter’s Square for the first blessing of Pope Leo XIV, the former Augustinian Cardinal, Robert Prevost. Providentially, my wife Peggy and I just happen to be in Rome visiting my eldest son’s family now located here.

Around 7:00 Peggy had phoned me with news of seeing white smoke from the Vatican chimney. That traditional signal indicated the successful completion of Papal Conclave deliberations. Earlier in the day, the two of us had been together in St. Peter’s Square when black smoke revealed an inconclusive result of that morning’s process.

So, I raced off walking as fast as I could toward the Via Conciliazione, the long wide avenue extending from the papal basilica. My five years living and studying in Rome (1967-1972) told me that a huge overflow crowd would gather there spilling over from St. Peter’s Square and awaiting the introduction of the new pope.

Forty minutes later, I arrived just in time to hear and (barely) see him.   

I could hardly believe my ears.

Imagine: a second consecutive American pope! And this one from the United States as successor to the first American pope, Argentina’s Pope Francis! Not only that, but the new man also turns out to be a fellow Chicagoan. Like me as well, he entered the seminary as a 14-year-old intent already at that tender age on becoming a priest. I felt I knew him. (I also found myself wondering, could he also be a Cub fan? Probably not though. Prevost is a South-Sider which probably aligns him with the White Sox.)

More seriously, I wondered what could the cardinal electors have been thinking in selecting someone like Prevost – a dual citizen of the U.S. and Peru? And what could Prevost himself be signaling in choosing Leo XIV as his papal name? I also wondered what Leo’s election might portend for the Catholic Church and the world.

Along those lines, let me share some initial impressions.

The Significance of Prevost’s Election

Regardless of the Cardinal electors’ intentions, I find it noteworthy that the last two papal elections have shifted church focus from Europe to the Americas. They have directed attention away from the colonizers to the colonized, from the oppressed to the oppressors.

Could the cardinals’ appointment of Prevost be making a forceful statement about such dynamic?

I mean Francis was a product of United States’ oppression. Argentina’s U.S.-supported “dirty war,” led to the deaths and forced disappearances of more than 30,000 Argentinians. Whether by specific intention or by direction of the Holy Spirit, Francis’ election called attention to such tyranny over the Global South by an imperialistic United States.

Yes, Argentina’s Guerra Sucia (1974-’83) was the bloody expression of what Noam Chomsky and others identify as a more general U.S. war against the Catholic Church in Latin America. The conflict was sparked by implementation there of Catholic Church teachings on social justice and by the emergence of liberation theology, which Washington long considered and treated as a threat to national security.

With that in mind, the college of cardinals might be suggesting that new pope’s trajectory embodies the response Catholics should take to the United States’ cruel history of violence in what it has long considered its “backyard.”

Think about it: Prevost so identified with the oppressed that he became a citizen of Peru, the home of the great liberation theologian, Gustavo Gutierrez. Could Leo’s election be another affirmation of liberation theology and of “Americans” need to identify with the Global South? Whether intended or not, the attentive can make such connection.

Prevost & Social Justice

In any case, Prevost’s clear identification with the oppressed was further underlined by his papal name, Leo XIV.

The name suggests the new pope’s intention to continue his 19^th century namesake’s landmark contribution to “the best kept secret of the Catholic Church,” viz., its social justice teachings which are rarely mentioned from North American pulpits.

Nevertheless, the Church’s constantly reiterated teachings on economic and political justice highlight themes of:  

• Life and Dignity of the Human Person. …
• Call to Family, Community, and Participation. …
• Rights and Responsibilities. …
• Preferential Option for the Poor. …
• The Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers. …
• Solidarity. …
• Care for God’s Creation.

Along these lines, in 1891, Leo XIII wrote perhaps the most important papal encyclical of all time. (Papal encyclicals are pastoral letters written by popes for the whole Roman Catholic Church on matters of doctrine, morals, or discipline.)  I’m referring to Rerum Novarum on “The Condition of the Working Class.”  While affirming the right to private property, Rerum Novarum even more centrally asserted the dignity of labor, and the right of workers to form labor unions. For its time, it was revolutionary.

The encyclical was so important that three popes have specifically repeated and updated its radical teachings.

In 1931 Pius XI did so in Quadragesimo Anno published in the middle of the Great Depression. Quadragesimo Anno began with the words, “Forty years have passed since Leo XIII’s peerless Encyclical, On the Condition of Workers, first saw the light, and the whole Catholic world, filled with grateful recollection, is undertaking to commemorate it with befitting solemnity.

Forty years later in 1971, Paul VI commemorated Rerum Novarum again with his own Octogesima Adveniens. It identified action in the political arena as an essential element of Christian faith. Paul VI’s document begins with the words, “The eightieth anniversary of the publication of the encyclical Rerum Novarum, the message of which continues to inspire action for social justice, prompts us to take up again and to extend the teaching of our predecessors, in response to the new needs of a changing world.”

A final specific reiteration of Rerum Novarum was promulgated by Pope John Paul II in his Centesimus Annus published in 1991. Its first words are “The Centenary of the promulgation of the Encyclical which begins with the words “Rerum novarum“,¹ by my predecessor of venerable memory Pope Leo XIII, is an occasion of great importance for the present history of the Church and for my own Pontificate.”

Meanwhile, in 1965, the Second Vatican Council published what many consider its fundamental document, Gaudium et Spes, “The Church in the Modern World.” In what remains the official teaching of the Catholic Church, the Council document (like Rerum Novarum) declared the Church to be an agent of social transformation. It called on Catholics to constantly read “the signs of the times,” to denounce social injustices and contribute to identification of appropriate remedies. The church is humanist, the Council said, in that humanity itself is central to its philosophical and theological thinking. Moreover, human beings are not primarily individuals, but essentially members of communities.

In other words, Leo XIII remains an unforgettable giant in the history of the Catholic Church. Despite its not being acknowledged from U.S. pulpits, his teaching about social justice constitutes a central element of Roman Catholic official doctrine. Robert Provost’s assumption of his name represents yet another reiteration of Rerum Novarum’s centrality.

The New Pope’s Promise

So, what does all of this portend for Leo XIV’s reign?

It suggests:

• A continuation not only of the tradition of Leo XIII, but of Prevost’s immediate predecessor and patron, Pope Francis.
• Yet another encyclical in the spirit of Rerum Novarum
• This time incorporating the environmental themes of Francis’ Laudato Si’ (2015) which remains perhaps the most important document of the 21^st century on climate change.
• Leo XIV as an outspoken voice concerning the climatic and imperial causes of Global South immigration to Europe and North America.
• Denunciations of U.S. forever wars as responses to global crises.

In other words, amid of one of our planet’s darkest hours, the election of Leo XIV could signal a highly significant turning point towards the light.