Leo XIII., the Great Leader

by Rev. A. P. Doyle

During the last fortnight the gaze of all the world has been eagerly fixed on the death-bed of the expiring Pope, and under the white light of the public gaze he has loomed up, the great man he is, in all his gigantic proportions. The world saw the corporal feebleness of age and the ravaging hand of disease, but it saw also the conquering and unconquered spirit of the greatest man of his age—the noblest Roman of them all.

It is not time as yet to write his eulogy. We are too near the massive proportions of a great life to give a proper estimate of its greatness. It will be necessary to stand off from it at some distance in order to get the proper perspective. Still there are, however, some things that have impressed the world, and from these we cannot get away.

During these days of his mortal sickness, when the struggle with the grim monster became the keenest, Leo never is anything but the Christian gentleman. Men of dominating minds and inflexible wills, especially if they have been accustomed to rule, are sometimes thoughtless of others who are about them. They have been so accustomed to brush away obstacles that the directness and force of their determination seem to know no fear or favor in dealing with things that surround them. Leo never forgets the chivalry of Christian gentleness. When the cardinals come in to see him, though he is as near prostrate in body as he may be, still he rises from his bed to meet them, and asks them to be seated. When Dr. Lapponi asks to be relieved for a short while to visit the sick bed of his daughter, Leo apologizes for the trouble he is giving to every one around him, and says that they have all become martyrs for his sake. When one of the Vatican pigeons lights on his window-sill and gently taps at the window, he awakes out of his weakness and asks that the window be raised and the bird admitted, and he feeds the pigeon as it lights on his bed, gently stroking its feathers. When every one is anticipating his speedy dissolution, he rises from his bed, goes over to his writing desk, and puts into poetry some beautiful thought that fills his mind. And in the midst of all his suffering he is full of devotion. He prays incessantly to the Mother of God. St. Leo's day comes, and ever since his childhood he has not failed to be present at Holy Mass on that day particularly; he directs that Mass be said in the adjoining room, and he devoutly follows it. He was a member of the Third Order of Franciscans, and in order to receive all the wonderful privileges that are granted to the faithful who are identified with that Third Order, he sends for the Capuchin cardinal to give him the last blessing. His faith is strong and tender. In the visions that pass before his mind the joys of paradise are vividly depicted. He would stay to give his last breath for the Church, but the alluring vision of heaven beckons him away. And in the midst of it all nothing can quench his unconquerable desire for work. There are some things that are unfinished; he calls Cardinal Rampolla and directs their execution. The Biblical Commission is very close to his heart, and he gives an admonition to his secretary that its work be prosecuted to a speedy end. These and many other little touches of character coming from the death chamber do not fail to paint the portrait of one of the greatest Popes the world has ever known.

Leo has been a providential man in the fullest sense of the word. He has been a Moses who has led the hosts of the Lord from a captivity that was more galling than the slavery of Egypt of old through the desert of suffering into the promised land. The forty years that have elapsed since the breach of Porta Pia have brought untold victories to the church. The Robber King battering at the gates of Rome is readily offset in the eyes of discerning readers by the eager visits of the Kaiser, the head of the Lutheran Church, and the English King, the head of the Episcopal Church, to pay reverence and homage to the head of the great Mother Church of Christendom, and everywhere throughout the world, people who are outside the fold have been devoutly praying that he might be spared to the world for many years to come. One cannot help contrasting the feelings of non-Catholic people to-day towards the Church of Rome with the sentiments of antagonism that were expressed but a generation ago. Not a little of this is due to the commanding, and at the same time attractive, figure of the great White Shepherd of Christendom. There have been popes who have emphasized certain characteristics, and they stand out in history as striking types of these special characteristics. Innocent III. was a great reformer; Sixtus V. a great statesman; Pius V. was crowned with the aureole of sanctity; Gregory VI. was a man of great learning; but Leo seems to have united in his own person in a very marked degree all these great qualities. His gifts were of so universal a nature that it is difficult to say which one belongs to him in the more pre-eminent degree. His genius has illuminated every department of religious activity, be it statecraft or be it letters; be it the devotional side of the church, or the philosophical, or the diplomatic, or the purely religious.

As a statesman he has rallied to the support of the church the influences of the great civil powers. When he began his pontifical career England was the enemy of the Papacy; Germany was persecuting the Catholics of the Empire; the United States of America had established no definite relations with the Holy See; while Spain, and France, and Austria, Catholic at heart, were too much worried over internal difficulties to be the earnest supporters of the Papacy that they should be. After twenty-five years there is no stronger friend of the dying Pope than the Emperor of Germany. The antagonisms that were openly enunciated in the German Empire against Catholics have been replaced by expressions of fealty. The Emperor has come to look upon the moral power of the Papacy as one of the most potent supporters of the throne. Leo has so stood for the authority of constituted governments, and the Catholic religion has had such influence in inculcating reverence and submission among the people, that were there no force of this nature, it would be necessary to create one in order that its work may be done. In Germany the people to-day are about equally divided between the Catholics as loyal supporters of the throne and the socialists, who, if their programme were carried out in its entirety, would sweep the throne away and abolish the authority that it stands for. In England the same is true, though perhaps not to as large an extent as it is elsewhere. In Spain Leo has upheld the throne that was tottering to a disastrous fall. If it were not for his influence, Spain would to-day be in the grasp of the revolution or broken up into a number of smaller states.

In the United States the devotion of twelve million Catholics has done not a little to cement together the stones of our social fabric by infusing the spirit of religion into the educational life of the country, and by standing for the permanency of the family and the integrity of the home.

Here is a sheaf of victories in the diplomatic world that would make any man's life a blessing to the world. Of course it is a profound pity that more has not been done in France. That it has not been done is no fault of Leo's. If his advice had been taken, and if the Catholics of France had rallied to the support of the existing government, it may well be supposed that the present deplorable condition of religious affairs would not have come to pass. Instead of witnessing the religious orders persecuted by an infidel government, there would probably have been a change of heart in the civil authorities, and as of yore France would be the eldest daughter of the church. The same may be said in Italy. The Italian people are more loyal to the Holy See to-day than ever. The sympathy that has gone out to the prisoner of the Vatican, as well as a certain sentiment of co-suffering that the people, ground down by heavy taxation, have felt with the Pope, have made them more loyal in their fealty to the head of the church.

Not only in statecraft has Leo proved himself an adept, but as a scholar he has elevated the standards of literary taste and of ecclesiastical studies. In calling the professors of the Catholic world back to the scholastic philosophy he has laid the foundations deep and strong for theological science, and he has pointed out the way back to the great truths of the supernatural order for much of the rationalistic and scientific knowledge of the age. During the last half of the nineteenth century agnostic science triumphed in most of the universities of the world; but the human mind could not be content with its barrenness and its negations, and in reaching out for something more positive, as well as for a solution of the religious problems that always perplex human hearts, the old philosophy of Aristotle constituted the best vantage ground, and with this solid basis to stand on the scholars of the day can much more readily reach out for that amalgamation between the modern and ancient schools. Historical science owes not a little to the man who threw open the archives of the Vatican, and who wanted the truth to be told, no matter who was injured thereby, and not a few scholars have profited by the initiative of Leo, with the result that a good deal of the history that was written in German and English under the influence of the fierce antagonisms of the Protestant revolt will have to, and is now being rewritten. In Biblical science the rationalizing Higher Critics were having a free hand and a wide field, with the result that the sacred books were torn into tatters and the old reverence for the Scriptures as the word of God was dying out among non-Catholic people. The Bible was all they had to depend upon, and when it was gone there came a decadence of the religious spirit. Leo came to the rescue, and there was nothing closer to his heart than the outcome of the Biblical Commission he established, and amidst the suffering of his last sickness one of his admonitions was to see that these investigations were brought to a speedy and wholesome issue. So too in social studies, which are now vexing the nations, Leo has given a Magna Charta in his Encyclical on the "Condition of Labor." He has affirmed principles there that seemed radical in their enunciation, but now that they are being applied to practical difficulties, are doing not a little to bring about the harmonization of Labor with Capital. The Catholic University of America was born of his inspiration; the universities in France and Germany and among the Slavonic peoples were started through his initiative. Seminaries in Rome for the education of the students of the Oriental rites owe their existence to his generous gifts and derive their permanency from his largesses.

All these and many more great things that he has done for the intellectual, make him the very prince among scholars.

In the midst of his many labors with governments and among scholars he has not forgotten the devotional life of the people. His own spirit of prayer has been imparted to the multitudes, so that there has been a distinct revival in the devotional life of the church. The devotion to the Sacred Heart, with its first Friday throngs, has received a distinct impetus from his instructions. The time-honored Rosary has become a more favorite devotion among all classes, and the October devotions, as well as the prayers after daily Mass, have become distinctive features of the devotional life of the church through his directions. The same may be said of the devotion to the Holy Spirit with its annual Pentecostal novena. He has not only known what to suggest, but his practical sense has so arranged that his suggestions were not mere ephemeral directions but were soon incorporated into the very soul-life of the people. No one can look back over the last generation and make any contrasts without saying that Leo has done as much for the religious spirit of the world as any of his predecessors.