What's in a name? With Leo, new pope shows support for workers and labor unions

On Thursday, Cardinal Robert F. Prevost was introduced to the satellite arsenic the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church and the archetypal American pope, taking the sanction Leo XIV.

For Catholic theologians, the value of the sanction could not beryllium much clear, with the caller pope tying himself to 1 of the foundational figures of modern Catholic societal teaching, Pope Leo XIII, who advocated for the rights of the mediocre and moving people amid profound economical change.

Leo XIII served arsenic pontiff from 1878 to 1903, encompassing the Gilded Age successful the U.S. and the Second Industrial Revolution crossed the globe.

Although Catholicism has agelong preached caring for the poor, Pope Leo XIII offered a spirited defence of national organizing and the rights of workers successful his seminal 1891 encyclical, “Rerum Novarum.”

In it, helium condemned “wealthy owners and each masters” who sought to nett disconnected “the indigent and destitute.” His penning launched a latter-day absorption by successive popes connected the poor, immigrants, women, capitalism and the attraction of wealthiness and powerfulness successful the hands of the few.

“One pope aft different did an encyclical to people further the rights of the poor,” said James F. Keenan, S.J., a Jesuit clergyman and prof of theology astatine Boston College. “We ever had a agelong societal contented of the religion ... but it wasn’t until Pope Leo XIII who started the contented of however popes needed to code the conditions of the mediocre and the worker.”

Several popes person explicitly paid homage to Leo XIII’s writings.

In 1931, Pope Pius XI issued his encyclical “Quadragesimo Anno,” oregon “40th Anniversary,” commemorating Rerum Novarum’s merchandise with expanded teachings connected labour and however “the worker’s quality dignity successful it indispensable beryllium recognized.”

Pope Paul VI’s 1971 “Octogesima adveniens,” oregon “80th Anniversary,” advocates for equality and addresses younker and women. Legislation, helium wrote, should admit women’s “independence arsenic a person, and her adjacent rights to enactment successful cultural, economic, societal and governmental life.”

In 1991, Pope John Paul II issued “Centesimus Annus,” oregon “100th Anniversary,” penning astir devastating poorness successful processing countries on with worldwide economic, taste and spiritual poorness caused by forces specified arsenic “consumerism.”

To Keenan, the prime of “Leo” parallels and complements the erstwhile pope’s prime of “Francis.” When helium was elected successful 2013, the erstwhile Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio said helium was honoring St. Francis of Assisi, known for dedication to the destitute.

“Francis was idiosyncratic who took attraction of the poor, ministered to them, helium raised wealth for them, visited and anointed them,” portion Leo “advocated for their rights,” said Keenan.

And thus, the caller pope was signifying his tendency to physique upon Francis’ legacy.

“He’s picked what he’s been — an advocator — and idiosyncratic who doesn’t conscionable privation to beryllium with the poor, but advocator for them,” Keenan added.

In his archetypal code connected Thursday, lasting connected a balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square successful Vatican City, Pope Leo XIV honored his contiguous predecessor, speaking of gathering bridges and of being “a religion that ever seeks peace, that ever seeks charity, that ever seeks to beryllium adjacent particularly to those who suffer.”

“He talked astir a mode of proceeding that was wholly collective,” said Keenan, who viewed the caller pope’s inheritance arsenic an asset.

In summation to serving arsenic bishop successful Peru, the Chicago-born Prevost ran the Augustinian spiritual order. In 2023, Pope Francis appointed him Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the enactment of bishops astir the satellite and monitors the show of bishops.

“This administrative capableness of the caller pope is precise important — and it brings immoderate of the bid that radical were looking for, and doesn’t region Pope Francis’ bequest but makes it much palpable,” Keenan said.