Leo XIII
20 February 1878 — 20 July 1903

Leo entered the priesthood with some reluctance. Not until the age of twenty-seven did he finally make his decision. During his career as a priest he showed himself astute both as politician, intellectual and pastor. He was a man well qualified to foster the healing of the deadly wound. Cardinal Gioacchino Pecci was born on March 2, 1810. He had proven his political skills when appointed papal legate and ruler of the city of Benevento, thirty-five miles northeast of Naples in 1838, only a year after his entry into the priesthood. Three years later he held a similar appointment in Perugia, eighty-five miles north of Rome. At the age of thirty-three he was appointed papal nuncio to Belgium and two years later, in 1845, he was raised to the episcopate as Bishop of Perugia. He was only forty-three years of age when Pius IX gave him his red hat. Rare it is for a pope to spend a quarter of a century as a cardinal before his elevation to the Bishopric of Rome. Leo XIII was sixty-eight years old at his coronation as pope. Not insignificant to his election was his age. Rarely has the Roman Catholic Church favored long pontificates. It is thought that long reigns allow too much influence from one pope. Pius IX, his predecessor, was the longest reigning pope in history—thirty-two years. It was almost inevitable that an older cardinal would be elected with the expectation that his reign would be considerably shorter. However Leo XIII lived to the age of ninety-three, extending his Papal rule to twenty-five years—the second longest in history.

Leo XIII deeply studied the writings of Thomas Aquinas, a Roman Catholic saint. Aquinas and Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, were probably the two most influential theologians in the history of the church. Aquinas, who died in his late forties, was a scholar of the thirteenth century, whose teachings were opposed in his lifetime and later but whose theology was endorsed in Leo XIII’s encyclical Æterni patris (1880) and Pius XI’s encyclical Studiorum ducem (1923).

Leo had been consulted by his predecessor in the construction of the widely despised Syllabus of Errors issued in 1864. It is little wonder that in his encyclical, Libertas humana (Human Liberty) (1888) he declared,

In the same encyclical Leo declared that—

This was strange "justice" indeed! It was a philosophy well shaped to coerce the conscience and compel worship as prophesied in Revelation 13:15—17, and to persecute those who in conscience cannot follow the faulted faith of Rome. Yet it was to this Pontiff that one of his successors, John Paul II, turned for support for his Apostolic Letter, Dies Domini (The day of the Lord) which proposed state support for Sunday sacredness in 1998.

Leo’s study of Thomas Aquinas was to his detriment. He would have been far better employed in the study of the Bible. That he promoted Aquinas’ theological notions in his encyclicals registers the extent to which the errors of this theologian were accepted by Leo. It also underpins the Pope’s denial of religious liberty.

Thomas Aquinas entrenched persecution of dissenters in his tome, Summa Theologica, in which he stated,

Aquinas’ second part is no less intolerant despite its initial "mercy."

This view must be born in mind when we examine the work of John Paul II who, on March 28, 1998, issued his encyclical, Ad tuendam fidem (To Protect the Faith) in which he issued a new canon law condemning dissenters from the Roman Catholic faith to punishment as heretics.

It must be remembered that Aquinas steeped himself in the writings of the Greek pagan philosopher, Aristotle (384 b.c.—322 b.c.). Arabian philosophers, Avicenna and Averrhoës and the Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, had introduced the writings of Aristotle to Europe in the thirteenth century.

It is at the peril of their own soul and the souls of others that men intertwine pagan darkness with Christian faith as if Christ and Satan can be fused.

In view of our chapter entitled "The Seal of God and the Mark of the Beast" it is worthy of our attention that—

Since Revelation 13:15—17 sets forth future severe persecution for violation of Sunday sacredness, Leo’s resort to the anti-Sabbath, pro-persecution position of the Roman Catholic Church must be born in mind by every sincere student of prophecy. We must be alert to every move to fulfill that which God has foreseen.

Leo XIII’s pontificate requires evaluation in the light of his promotion of the works of Aquinas, for the shadow of Leo is cast long and deep over the Roman Catholic Church of the beginning of the twenty-first century. We note, above, that Aquinas invoked the state, "the secular tribunal," to enforce the death decree against heretics. We record these facts, not in a spirit of Roman Catholic hatred, far be that spirit from any sincere follower of Christ, but plain facts which must be brought to the attention of devout Christians genuinely seeking to understand the times in which we live.

Leo extrapolated Aquinas’ doctrine in his encyclical Libertas humana to declare that—

We do not regard these as rights given by nature, but they are rights accorded by our God who never coerces, but in love woos our free will to His cause.

Despite the alarming positions set forth by Leo, there were those who, ignoring the dark implications of his Thomist theology, accorded him respect. His encyclical Rerum novarum (New Things), issued in 1891, promoted the cause of the working-class and presented Roman Catholicism as a compassionate social force. Yet most non-Catholics who wrote plaudits concerning this encyclical, failed to notice the hook planted in the appetizing bait.

However, John Paul II, extracted from that book in his 1998 Dies Domini when he wrote:

In view of Leo’s adoption and promotion of the theology of Thomas Aquinas this plea for state assistance has serious overtones. Papal apologist, the Jesuit Professor Joseph Brusher, commented that,

As Cornwell concluded,

If the Papal Conclave had hoped for a short rule after the long reign of Pius IX, as stated above they were to be disappointed for, although sixty-eight years of age at his appointment, he lived to ninety-three, a length of papal rule second only to that of his predecessor. In that time the emphasis on Thomist theology was to pervade the thinking of priests in the twentieth century, for Leo—

Today many unthinking Protestants have taken up the catch-cry, "Stop preaching doctrine and preach only Christ." But what we believe in doctrine determines our whole attitude to Christ and his faith. The doctrines of Thomism lead to intolerance and persecution. This catch-cry may well serve the purposes of the ecumenical movement in its blind surge toward a unity, based not upon the truths of doctrinal purity, but upon a warm, fuzzy feeling among churches who possess diametrically opposed doctrines: such as the predestination of Presbyterians and the free choice of Methodists. But this catch-cry provides no basis whatsoever for unity based upon the platform of truth. Christ’s prayer for unity is riveted upon truth.

Let it never be forgotten that Christ is the center of all true doctrine. The Lord of the Sabbath is the central focus of the Sabbath doctrine. The One who is the resurrection and the life is the center of the truth of the resurrection. The One who is our heavenly High Priest is the center of the doctrine of the Advocacy of Christ. The One who is the coming King is the center of the Biblical doctrine of the Second Coming. Every doctrine, validated by Scripture, leads us to Christ. It is He who is the doctrine par excellence.

Thus it is not a matter of wonderment that—

False doctrines bear their fruit. They lead to un-Christlike actions.

Despite Leo’s encyclicals supporting the working class,

But in death Leo was not accorded the usual kissing of the feet because of the summer heat; and his coffin suffered the indignity of having to be kicked into place by the undertakers. It is little wonder that Cardinal Sarto, within a few days to be elected Pope Pius X, was aghast as he watched and commented to a fellow cardinal, "See. That’s how Popes end up." (C. Falconi, Popes in the Twentieth Century, London, 1967, p. 2) Such is the transient nature of man’s pride.

Yet Leo’s influence impacted upon his successors. It was his influence which led Pius XI in 1925 in his encyclical Quas primas to declare that the Roman Catholic Church—

Thus the Papacy reasserted its authority over all mankind, healing further its wound, as slumbering nations made little protest.

Peter de Rose reported that,

It was in this area that Leo XIII made some progress later in his reign. In the early part of his pontificate the Vatican’s political stocks were low, as we will document in the following chapter. Throughout Europe her wishes were ignored with apparent impunity and indeed strongly opposed. Yet Leo in the later years of his reign did score some political victories. His efforts to flatter Count Otto von Bismarck into rescinding the discrimination against Roman Catholic liberties in marriage, episcopal appointments and education (Kulturkampf) were successful in 1887. By 1903 the number of diplomatic representatives at the Vatican had risen from eighteen at the commencement of his reign to twenty-seven, a goodly number in view of the fact that throughout his entire pontificate there was no sovereign territory as his base.

Sensing the futility of Roman Catholic agitation for the restoration of the French monarchy, he later guided most of the French faithful to accept the status quo. Strangely, in 1885 Germany and Spain accepted Leo’s arbitration in their dispute over the Caroline Islands in the North Pacific. He obtained a few concessions for Roman Catholics from Czar Nicholas II of Russia and improved relations with Britain by refusing to support the extreme methods adopted by the Irish agrarian reformers. He also was able to assert some influence over Protestant Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.

But it was in the field of doctrine that the pope left a lasting heritage to his church. The doctrine of neo-Thomism, medieval in its origin and so pagan in its ultimate roots, continues to impress the minds of Catholic prelates. This thinking was well able to prepare the first beast of Revelation 13, at the time when world conditions are favorable, to impose its dictates upon dissenters, in the belief that it is doing the will of God. Anyone reading medieval history can discern the peril of the doctrines which Leo bequeathed to the Roman Catholic Church.