Today is the
memorial of St. Leo the Great. I have long defended that it’s time for a new
Pope to adopt the name Leo again. There’s not been seen a Leo in these parts
for over a hundred years, and some Popes with the name have done great things.
Of course, there was also an infamous Leo who is chiefly known for his
inadequate response to a Augustinian priest somewhere in the Electorate of
Saxony.
Out of
curiosity, I have looked more closely into the thirteen Popes who adopted the
name Leo, with an overview of their role in history. It is an interesting
journey through time.
Leo I
(440-461): called ‘the Great’, this Pope was both a theologian and a protector
of civilization. He
wrote the Tomus Leonis (‘Tome of Leo’), a book which explained the
relationship between the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ. This was
sent to the Council of Chalcedon (451), where the assembly of bishops greeted
it with the chorus, ‘Peter has spoken through Leo!’
As patriarch
of the West, he insisted on his own authority over the churches of Gaul,
bringing about greater unity with Rome. He also made it clear that the Pope had
been entrusted with the care for all churches in the world, writing to an
Eastern bishop, ‘The care of the universal Church should converge towards
Peter's one seat, and nothing anywhere should be separated from its Head.’
Leo also
increased political unity in Gaul by mediating a dispute between the two highest
officials in Gaul. One of those officials was Aëtius, first the friend and
later the rival of Attila the Hun, who lived in Rome as a young man. It was
that time.
In 452, Attila
headed towards Rome, burning cities along the way. Leo rode out to northern
Italy to talk to him at Lake Garda, as a consequence of which Attila halted his
march and went elsewhere. Or so the story has always gone; Raphael even made a painting
about it. It was a bit of a disappointment to read that Leo was only one of
three imperial envoys.
For the
literature lovers among us: Leo had a good ear for the sound of words, and his
prose style (the cursus leonicus) had a long-lasting influence on
ecclesiastical Latin.
Leo II
(682-683): in his time, the Eastern Roman Empire had a lot of influence in
papal elections. He was from Sicily, which was Byzantine territory. There were
many Sicilian refugees in Rome, because the island suffered attacks from the
Islamic Caliphate.
During his
brief reign, he gave official approval to a Church council (Constantinople
III).
In light of
Leo I’s battle for papal authority, it is ironic that a quote from Leo II has
provided an argument against papal infallibility. Leo II condemned Pope
Honorius, who reigned half a century earlier, for being lax in the fight
against heresy; in doing so, he described Honorius as ‘one who by unholy
betrayal has tried to overthrow the unspoiled faith’.
Leo III
(795-816): the Pope who on Christmas Day in the year 800 crowned Charlemagne,
the first Emperor in the West after the downfall of the Empire three hundred
years earlier. (Raphael painted
the scene.) Charlemagne was convinced that it was his own duty to defend the
Church, and that the Pope should pray for the safety and victory of the Empire.
As Leo I was
active in Gaul, Leo III interfered in England – among other things, the home of
the scholar Alcuin, whose intelligence and knowledge were invaluable to the
school that Charlemagne started at his court. This school created a cultural
unity in Europe that endured long after the Carolingian emperors dwindled.
As far as I am
concerned, Leo III could be made a patron of ecumenical dialogue. When
Charlemagne insisted that he should add the Filioque to the Nicene
Creed, Leo refused; not because he disagreed, but because he was unwilling to
change the profession of faith that Christians of the East and the West prayed
in the liturgy. Not only did he refuse, but he gave the order to write the
unchanged Creed on tablets of silver and display them outside St. Peter’s
Basilica – a clear ‘in-your-face’ to his friend the Emperor.
Leo IV
(847-855): a man whose reign was defined by the fight with the Arabs. These
were not distant threats: a year before Leo’s ascension to the papal throne,
Saracens invaded Rome and damaged the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Leo took
the repairs in hand.
He also
organized a naval league of ships from Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi, who defeated
the Muslim pirates at the Battle of Ostia in 849. (Raphael painted
this, too.) Just as a reminder: Ostia is the harbour where Augustine and
Monica talked half a millennium earlier, in preparation for a voyage back to
their home in North Africa.
The captives
from the Battle of Ostia helped to build the protective Leonine Wall around
Vatican Hill, of which a part still stands today.
Leo V (903): he
became Pope a year after the completion of the Muslim conquest of Sicily. But
he had enemies closer to home. He reigned for two months, and his chief feat is
a tax exemption for the canons of Bologna.
After that, a
cardinal named Christopher proclaimed himself Pope and threw Leo into prison.
It is likely that both were killed in 904 by the next Pope, Sergius III. Thus
began the saeculum obscurum, also known as the ‘Rule of the Harlots’: a
period in which the papacy was regarded as a source of income and military
strength, over which Italian aristocratic families were fighting like dogs over
a bone.
Leo VI (928):
a Pope who was chosen by the senatrix Marozia, formerly the mistress of
Sergius III. Leo’s immediate predecessor had been imprisoned and killed by
Marozia.
He does not
seem to have been a very bad Pope, mostly concerning himself with the
ecclesiastical situation in Dalmatia (in the modern-day Balkan). He also forbade
castrates from marrying and sent out a plea for help against Arab raiders. It
looks like he died a natural death.
Leo VII
(936-939): also chosen by the temporal ruler of Rome. He was possibly a
Benedictine and gave many privileges to monasteries, especially Cluny. He also
asked them to mediate in disputes.
Leo VIII
(964-965): was an antipope before he legitimately became Pope. He was an
important official at the court of Pope John XII and served as an ambassador to
Emperor Otto I. The two were engaged in a struggle about the Papal States.
Ironically, when Leo was sent on his mission to Otto, the Emperor was just
besieging the Italian king in his Castle of St. Leo.
Otto marched
on Rome; John fled; Otto appointed Leo to the papacy.
Otto left; the
Romans rebelled; Leo fled to Otto; another Pope (Benedict) was elected.
Otto came
back; Pope Benedict’s staff was broken; Leo was installed again. He spent his
papacy conferring favours on the Emperor. This was the end of the saeculum
obscurum.
Leo IX
(1049-1054): a German Pope, and a saint. He promoted the order of Cluny. After
being elected Pope by the Emperor and Roman delegates, he insisted on being
officially elected by the clergy and people of Rome.
He reinforced
the practice of celibacy and fought against simony (the sale of important
positions in the Church). He was also involved in a dispute about Eucharistic
theology. It’s good to see the Popes returning to their original calling.
At the time
the Byzantines held southern Italy, but they were under attack from the
Normans. They asked the Pope for military intervention, thinking that the
Normans would be reluctant to fight the Pope. So they were, but they still
soundly thrashed the papal forces at the Battle of Civitate (no, Raphael didn’t
paint this). After his defeat, Leo went out to the Normans and was received
with reverence, even though he was also taken as a captive.
Unfortunately,
Leo IX helped set in motion the events that would lead to the great schism of
East and West. He quoted (in good faith) a forged letter, supposed to be from
Constantine, who had purportedly given authority over the Western Roman Empire
to the Pope. This was not accepted in the East, and the impatience of Leo’s
legate led to the mutual excommunications of 1054. Leo himself had died shortly
before.
Leo X
(1513-1521): this one also lived at a time of great schism. This time it was
the Reformation, which broke out in 1517. The Ecumenical Council held under
Leo’s watch (Lateran V) encouraged reform of the Church, but was not well implemented.
Leo was
cheerful, with a pleasant voice and an intellectual sense of humour. He was a
patron of the arts (and a big spender), and commissioned Raphael to paint the
Vatican stanze. He was involved with the university, with literature,
music and antiquities.
He was also
the last Pope who was not a priest at the time of his election to the papacy.
Because he
wanted to increase his nephew’s political prestige, he joined Spain and England
in a war with France. This was disastrous for the papal treasury and soured the
relationship between the Pope and the College of Cardinals, which tried to
poison Leo. He used the situation to his advantage by executing one Cardinal
and nominating thirty-one of his own.
Feeling
threatened by the Ottoman sultan, Selim I, Leo tried to organize a truce
throughout Western Christianity for the sake of a crusade. This was in 1517. It
was a valiant attempt, but it failed, and the religious turmoil that would soon
break out made such a peace impossible forever.
In the movie Luther
he is depicted as strict and cruel, but the picture I get is that he would be a
great conversation partner for dinner (as long as you wouldn’t try to poison
him).
Leo XI (1605):
nephew of Leo X, from the Medici family. He reigned less than a month. He felt
an early vocation to the priesthood, but his mother would hear nothing of it.
He became a courtier, was knighted and struck up a friendship with a man twenty
years his senior: Philip Neri (later canonized).
After his
mother’s death he became a priest, then bishop and cardinal. He fulfilled a
diplomatic position in France. Because he was popular with the French
cardinals, he was elected Pope rather than Robert Bellarmine (also later
canonized). But he was already 70, and the inaugural ceremony wearied him so
much that he died within a month. That’s why they called him Papa Lampo,
‘Lightning Pope’.
Leo XII
(1823-1829): as an indication of how much times can change, this Leo was the
only Pope in his century with a Cardinal for a nephew. Like Leo XI, Leo XII
also had experience in a diplomatic position, namely in Switzerland. During his
lifetime, Napoleon abolished the Papal States, at which the future Leo secluded
himself in an abbey for a few years.
He was
conservative in his outlook and did not want to make any compromises with the
new revolutionary order. Against French opposition, he was elected Pope, having
served the preceding Pope as vicar-general. Because he was physically
unhealthy, he had argued against his own election, but to no avail.
He lived
frugally and tried to soften the financial strain on the inhabitants of the
Papal States (reestablished in 1814) by reducing taxes and other measures. It
did little good for the internal economy.
Leo’s conservatism
fueled his attempts to get everything in the Papal States under direct Church
control, such as schools (where he made Latin the obligatory language) and
charitable institutions. Jews were not allowed to own property under his watch,
and all residents of Rome were required to listen to expositions on the
catechism, whether they were Catholic or not.
Leo XIII
(1878-1903): the oldest Pope (died at 93) with the third longest pontificate.
The first Pope who ascended the Holy See after the Papal States had been
definitively abolished by Victor Emmanuel II. It took a while before the Popes
could accept this, and so Leo lived in the uneasy time when the Pope considered
himself to be ‘prisoner of the Vatican’.
He made great
contributions in the realm of theology. With his encyclical Aeterni Patris,
he gave a new impulse to the study of St. Thomas Aquinas, making it normative
for seminaries as well as Catholic universities. The importance of Scripture
for theology, too, was underscored in Providentissimus Deus. Leo was
open to Eastern Christians and wanted to protect their rites, preventing the
‘latinization’ of Eastern Catholics. He also had a strong devotion to the
Virgin Mary and was known as the ‘Rosary Pope’.
Of course, he
is also (in a sense) the founder of Catholic social teaching, the first Pope to
devote an encyclical to social inequality: Rerum novarum. This tried to
sketch a middle road between capitalism and communism. Later Popes wrote new
and ‘updated’ social encyclicals on various anniversaries of Rerum novarum.
He was the
Pope with whom St. Therese of Lisieux had a brief audience.
Leo XIII rests
in the Basilica of St. John in Lateran, whose dedication we celebrated
yesterday.
To conclude,
it is said in an Eastern kontakion to St. Leo the Great:
Seated upon the throne
of the priesthood, glorious Leo,
you shut the mouths of
the spiritual lions.
