Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Carpineto (Agenzia Fides) - “Christians, acting as individual citizens or groups within the reality of history, constitute a beneficent and peaceful force for profound change, actualizing the development of the potentialities within reality itself. This is the form of presence and action in the world proposed by the Church’s social doctrine, which always points to the maturation of consciences as the valid and lasting condition for transformations.” These were the words of Pope Benedict XVI during the Mass celebrated on Sunday, September 5, in Carpineto Romano, birthplace of Gioacchino Pecci, Pope Leo XIII, whose bicentennial anniversary of birth is being celebrated this year.
In speaking of Leo XIII, the Pope highlighted that he was “a man of great faith and profound devotion. This always remains the basis of everything, for every Christian, including the Pope. Without prayer, that is, without interior union with God, we can do nothing.” The second aspect was that “every pastor is called to transmit to the People of God, not abstract truths, but a 'wisdom,' that is, a message that joins faith and reason, truth and concrete reality.”
The social teaching of Leo XIII, made famous and timeless in his encyclical “Rerum novarum,” constitutes “an organic body, the first nucleus of the Church’s social doctrine.” Reflecting on the Letter of Saint Paul to Philemon, read on this Sunday, the pope recalled the invitation made by the Apostle to Philemon, asking that he receive his slave Onesimus who had become Christian “no longer as a slave but as a brother in Christ.” Benedict XVI affirmed: “The new Christian brotherhood overcomes the separation between slaves and freemen, and it triggers in history a promotion of the person that will lead to the abolition of slavery, but also to the overcoming of the barriers that had existed up until then. Pope Leo XIII dedicated his 1890 encyclical 'Catholicae Ecclesiae' precisely to the theme of slavery. From this particular experience of St. Paul with Onesimus there can develop a broad reflection on the movement of human promotion brought by Christianity to the path of civilization, and also on the method and style of this contribution, conformed to the evangelical images of the seed and the leaven.”
At the time in which the future Leo XIII was born, “the Church and many expressions of Christian culture were radically called into question,” the Pope mentioned. “Daily life was hard and difficult: the sanitary and dietary conditions were very poor. Meanwhile, industry developed and the workers’ movement along with it, which became more and more politically organized. The Church’s magisterium, at its highest level, was moved and helped by reflections and local experiences to elaborate a comprehensive and prospective reading of the new society and its common good. Thus, when he was elected to the pontifical office in 1878, Leo XIII felt called to bring this reading to completion in light of his ample knowledge of international breadth, but also of many initiatives launched 'in the field' by Christian communities and men and women of the Church.”
Benedict XVI recalled the many Saints and Blesseds who from the end of the 1700s to the beginning of the 1900s “sought out and took -- with the imagination of charity -- many roads to actualize the evangelical message within the new social realities” and thus, concluded: “In an age of bitter anti-clericalism and of volatile demonstrations against the Pope, Leo XIII knew how to guide and support Catholics along the path of constructive participation, rich in contents, firm about principles and capable of openness...Thus a very old but wise and farseeing Pope was able to introduce into the 20th century a rejuvenated Church, with the right attitude to face the new challenges.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 6/09/2010)
