Leo’s election changed the course of the papacy.
He was a modern man of his times, and he worked, by preaching and writing, to bring Catholic attitudes into the modern world without losing it's core.
He managed to end Kulturkampf in 1887.
He tried to bring FrenchCatholics to support the republic.
His 1885encyclicalImmortale Dei explained the position of Catholics as citizens in modern secular, democratic states.
He refuted the French royalists' claim that they were exceptional Catholics, and the Frenchanti-Catholics contention that the Church was politically reactionary; overall he supported and vindicated Catholic democrats
He opposed the anti-Catholic government of Italy.
In Rerum novarum in 1891, Leo explained the sad deficiencies of Marxism and gave an early warning of the misery it would inflict on the world.
He countered intellectual attacks on Christianity by advancing Thomism, with its insistence that there is no conflict between science and faith; he wrote Aeterni Patris in 1879 in which he declared the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas official, and required its study.
He founded the institute of Thomistic philosophy at the University of Louvain.
He opened the Vatican secret archives to scholars, and reminded Catholic historians that nothing but the whole truth must be found in their work.
He encouraged Bible study, set up the permanent Biblical Commission in 1902, and sponsored the Catholic University at Washington, DC, USA.
First pope to have his voice recorded.
The length of his reign, over 25 years, allowed him to stock the college of cardinals with many excellent men; he created 147 of them.
Birth
2 March1810 in Carpineto, diocese of Anagni, Italy as Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci
![[photograph of Pope Leo XIII]](pope0256b.jpg "photograph of Pope Leo XIII, date unknown, photographer unknown; please do not write to ask about the image")