Alessia Pierdomenico / Shutterstock.com
In a recent article for Angelus News, Catholic apologist Mike Aquilina unpacked the historical and theological weight behind the name “Leo,” revealing how it connects the new pope with two of the Church’s most influential figures: Pope Leo XIII and Pope Leo I.
In his first major address as pope on May 10, Leo XIV told the College of Cardinals that his decision stemmed largely from the example of Pope Leo XIII.
“Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV,” he said, citing Pope Leo XIII’s landmark 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which tackled the pressing social challenges of the first industrial revolution.
Today, Aquilina noted, Pope Leo XIV faces “another industrial revolution”— this time driven by artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies that raise new questions about labor, justice, and human dignity.
Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, which addressed the rights of workers, the responsibilities of employers, and the role of the state, is considered the “Magna Carta of modern Catholic social teaching,” Aquilina wrote. The encyclical marked the Church’s formal engagement with the economic and social upheavals of modernity.
“By choosing the name ‘Leo’ and explicitly invoking ‘Rerum Novarum,’ the Church’s 267th pope has placed not just an encyclical, but his pontificate, at the service of the social question,” Aquilina wrote.
But Aquilina pointed out that Leo XIV’s name choice also reaches further back — to Pope Leo I, known as “Leo the Great.” Serving in the fifth century, Leo I was a staunch defender of Christological orthodoxy and an eloquent but straightforward teacher of the faith.
His most famous contribution, his tome, was met with acclaim at the Council of Chalcedon in 451.
“When the bishops there received it, they cried out: ‘Peter has spoken through Leo!’” Aquilina said. “By acclamation they confirmed the dogmatic authority of Leo I’s tome, which had been delivered with apostolic authority, but cast in Augustine’s language.”
According to Aquilina, Pope Leo I drew heavily on the theology of St. Augustine, even borrowing full passages from the bishop of Hippo.
“Leo I may have been the first Augustinian pope,” Aquilina said, “in the original sense of the word ‘Augustinian,’ and even the first Augustinian pope named Leo.”
>> Pope Leo XIV’s spirituality: Catholic apologist unpacks the Augustinian mind <<
