I Love Pope Leo XIV

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I already love our new pope. Everything he’s said and done so far make me think the Holy Spirit was indeed guiding the cardinals in the conclave as they voted for Pope Francis’ successor to the Chair of Saint Peter.

The first indication that I was going to like this man was his choice of name: Leo XIV. The last pope to bear that name was the author of Rerum Novarum, an encyclical written in 1891 calling for the dignity of workers to be observed – “by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. … [T]he hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself,” the encyclical states in one of its opening paragraphs.

Although more than 100 years have gone by, Rerum Novarum’s call to action is as relevant now as it was when it was published; it insists that workers should not be expected to work excessively long hours or under unsafe or immoral conditions, and that they should be paid a fair wage – issues that remain a problem in today’s world.

The encyclical also introduced what we now call the key tenets of Catholic Social Teaching: the dignity of the person, the common good, subsidiarity and the preferential option for the poor. It might surprise some people that Pope Leo XIII also acknowledged the right to private ownership; he quoted Saint Thomas Aquinas: “It is lawful for a man to hold private property; and it is also necessary for the carrying on of human existence.”

Then, too, the pope addressed the responsibilities that workers have to their employers, including that they should give a full day’s work for their fair daily wage. (If you want to learn more about the encyclical, the full text is available on the Vatican website.)

Rerum Novarum continues to be important because, as our new pope has said, “In our own day, the Church offers everyone the treasury of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”

In his first words as pope, Leo XIV assured us that God loves us and that evil will not prevail. This is a message I need to hear again and again; I was also heartened by him saying, “I am a son of St. Augustine, an Augustinian, who said, ‘For you I am a bishop, with you, I am a Christian.’ In this sense we can all walk together toward that homeland that God has prepared.” To me this means that, like Pope Francis, Leo is calling us to journey alongside each other, and that he will continue the work of synodality, which means listening to each other as we discern our path, guided by the Holy Spirit.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Leo XIV’s first homily, because I easily related to the attitudes he described as a reaction to the question Jesus asks of his disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

One attitude is that of “a world that considers Jesus a completely insignificant person, at best someone with an unusual and striking way of speaking and acting,” the pope said.

Another attitude is that of ordinary people. “For them, the Nazarene is not a charlatan, but an upright man, one who has courage, who speaks well and says the right things, like other great prophets in the history of Israel,” the pope said, although “to them he is only a man, and therefore, in times of danger, during his passion, they too abandon him and depart disappointed.”

By contrast, for Christians today, “it is essential that we too repeat, with Peter: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,’” he said.

I love the way our new pope speaks; his theology is sound and he communicates it in a way that is compelling and easily understood. I am very much looking forward to being one of his sheep and answering his call as he leads the Church toward the Kingdom of God.

Marie Mischel is editor of the Intermountain Catholic. Reach her at marie@icatholic.org.