ROME – In a meeting with the College of Cardinals Saturday, two days after his election to the papacy, Pope Leo XIV explained that he chose his papal name as a commitment to the Church’s social teaching amid a new revolution in artificial intelligence.
Speaking to cardinals May 10, the pope said there were various reasons for why he chose his papal name, “but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”
Rerum Novarum is an encyclical written by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 addressing the conditions of the working classes and which deals with various social issues. It is widely hailed as having laid out the framework for the Catholic Church’s modern social doctrine and its position on social issues, which were a bedrock of Pope Francis’s pontificate.
“In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor,” Leo said in his address.
He divided his speech into two segments, the first of which were prepared remarks to the cardinals, with the second portion dedicated to questions, suggestions, and proposals for concrete issues that had been discussed in the days leading up to the conclave.
Leo told the cardinals that their presence was a reassurance to him “that the Lord, who has entrusted me with this mission, will not leave me alone in bearing its responsibility.”
He urged them to view the passing of Pope Francis and the conclave as “a stage in that long exodus through which the Lord continues to guide us towards the fullness of life.”
“It is up to us to be docile listeners to his voice and faithful ministers of his plan of salvation, mindful that God loves to communicate himself, not in the roar of thunder and earthquakes, but in the ‘whisper of a gentle breeze’ or, as some translate it, in a ‘sound of sheer silence,’” he said.
Leo insisted that it is to this “essential and important encounter” with God that the Church’s pastors must guide the people entrusted to their care.
In this sense, he asked cardinals to renew their “complete commitment” to “the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican Council,” which he said Pope Francis “masterfully and concretely” illustrated in his 2013 apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, the first of his papacy.
In reference to the document, Leo highlighted the aspects of the “missionary conversion” of the Christian community, as well as a growth in synodality and collegiality and increased attention to the sensus fidei, “especially in its most authentic and inclusive forms, such as popular piety.”
He also underlined love and attention to the poor and rejected, and to dialogue with the modern world.
“These are evangelical principles that have always inspired and guided the life and activity of God’s family,” he said, saying these values are an expression of God’s mercy, which “has been revealed and continues to be revealed in his incarnate Son, the ultimate hope of all who sincerely seek truth, justice, peace and fraternity.”
Leo said he felt called to that same path, which is in part why he chose the papal name Leo XIV, in light of the message that Rerum Novarum can offer to the world today.
He closed his speech quoting Pope Paul VI’s inauguration address after being elected pope, saying, “May it pass over the whole world like a great flame of faith and love kindled in all men and women of good will.”
“May it shed light on paths of mutual cooperation and bless humanity abundantly, now and always, with the very strength of God, without whose help nothing is valid, nothing is holy,” he said, praying that their sentiments “be translated into prayer and commitment, with the Lord’s help.”
Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen
