Who was Pope Leo XIII, the inspiration behind our new pope?

The art of being Pope Leo: from a Raphael portrait to the first pontiff to be captured on film

Cardinal Prevost's choice of the name Leo links him to Leo XIII, a 19th-century champion of social justice. It also recalls Leo I, Leo III and Leo IV, whose diplomatic and military achievements are depicted in Raphael's “stanze” frescoes, completed for Pope Leo X

Who was Pope Leo XIII, the inspiration behind our new pope?

Leo XIII (1878–1903), the first pope of the 20th century, took bold stances on the major social issues of his time and laid the groundwork for Catholic social teaching with his prophetic 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum.

In 1890, a Tucuman woman named Mercedes del Carmen Pacheco, in the midst of youth, heard in the temples the considerations and explanations of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclicals: “About obligations...