By Tom Dwyer

Friends –

Commenting about the election of a priest once known as Father Bob on Chicago’s South Side and now as new Pope Leo XIV, a 21-year-old American college student in Rome told an NPR news reporter that the new Pope looks “like someone who’s gonna crush it.”  Hardly a theological insight.  It is one, though, that I daresay Pope Francis would have heartily laughed at in full agreement.  And judging by the first reports about our new Holy Father’s way of thinking about faith and the world, I think Pope Leo XIV might be pleased with such a street jargon endorsement.

Pope Leo XIV certainly seems to be a man who firmly believes our faith belongs deeply enmeshed in the world’s affairs and culture, not solely in places of worship.  He has pointedly observed that a “bishop is not supposed to be a little prince sitting in his kingdom.”

Many are naturally wondering who Leo XIV will prove to be.  If the past is prologue, we have hints abundant.  If choosing a name is telling, we have a sign brightly shining.

The most immediate predecessor pope with the name of Leo was, of course, Pope Leo XIII, the Holy Father at the turn of the 19th century.  Leo XIII is best known as the Father of Catholic Social Teaching, the best kept secret in the Catholic Church.  In May 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued his ground-breaking encyclical Rerum Novarum (The Condition of Labor).  The world to which it was addressed contained much poverty.  Because of the Industrial Revolution, workers were being exploited.  Public authorities were not protecting the rights of the poor.  Rerum Novarum teaches then as now:

• Human dignity requires the just distribution of wealth, and that states have a pre-eminent role in assuring such.
• Workers have basic human rights that adhere to Natural Law, which says all humans are equal; workers have dignity that cannot be abridged or denied without irrevocable harm to our common humanity.
• For a just society to exist and thrive, the state has a solemn obligation to protect key personal rights: for all to receive a life-sustaining wage; for employees to organize into workers’ associations; and for all to have the ability to own private property.
• To build and maintain the common good, employers and employees alike have fundamental rights and responsibilities to each other, and once again, the state has as its core duty the fair application and regulation of these rights and responsibilities.
• The Church has the right to speak out on social issues.  Its role is to teach social principles and bring social classes together.  The state’s role is to create a just society through laws that preserve basic human rights.

Today’s world, though 134 years older and in theory supposedly wiser, still struggles with the same fundamental questions – poverty, mistreatment of the marginalized and weak, exploitation of people and our earthly resources; grossly unequal wealth distribution; a tendency to think of certain humans as expendable, and on and on.  My guess is that Pope Leo XIV recognizes that progress has been made, even substantial progress, since his predecessor Leo XIII’s times.  But I hear him saying clearly in his first few days as Pope that he knows well how much further there is to go and that he intends to lead us forward on the path to a more just world.

If one seeks a window into Pope Leo XIV’s heart, there may be no better place to start than the signature encyclical of his namesake, Leo XIII.  Rerum Novarum is 17 pages long.  Here is how it starts with language stark and unflinching and perhaps even a bit ominous:

“That the spirit of revolutionary change, which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics is not surprising.  The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable…in the marvelous discoveries of science…in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals and the utter poverty of the masses…The momentous gravity of the state of things now obtaining fills every mind with painful apprehension; wise men are discussing it; practical men are proposing schemes…

Therefore, venerable brethren, as on former occasions when it seemed opportune to refute false teaching, We have addressed you in the interests of the Church and of the commonweal, and have issued letters bearing on political power, human liberty, the Christian constitution of the State, and like matters, so have We thought it expedient now to speak… And the danger lies in this, that crafty agitators are intent on making use of these differences of opinion to pervert men’s judgments and to stir up the people to revolt…”

Toward the middle of those 17 pages, Pope Leo XIII turns his attention to the role of the state, spelling out unmistakably its imperatives.

“Hereby, then, it lies in the power of a ruler to benefit every class in the State, and amongst the rest to promote to the utmost the interests of the poor; and this in virtue of his office, and without being open to suspicion of undue interference – since it is the province of the commonwealth to serve the common good.  And the more that is done for the benefit of the working classes by the general laws of the country, the less need will there be to seek for special means to relieve them.

… There is another and deeper consideration which must not be lost sight of.  As regards the State, the interests of all, whether high or low, are equal…

Justice, therefore, demands that the interests of the working classes should be carefully watched over by the administration, so that they who contribute so largely to the advantage of the community may themselves share in the benefits which they create – that being housed, clothed, and bodily fit, they may find their life less hard and more endurable.

Still, when there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the poor and badly off have a claim to especial consideration. The richer class have many ways of shielding themselves and stand less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back upon and must chiefly depend upon the assistance of the State.”

In closing, Pope Leo XIII minces no words:

“Let this be carefully taken to heart by those whose office it is to safeguard the public welfare.  Every minister of holy religion must bring to the struggle the full energy of his mind and all his power of endurance.  Moved by your authority, venerable brethren, and quickened by your example, they should never cease to urge upon men of every class, upon the high-placed as well as the lowly, the Gospel doctrines of Christian life; by every means in their power they must strive to secure the good of the people; and above all must earnestly cherish in themselves, and try to arouse in others, charity, the mistress and the queen of virtues.”

Faith without action, as both Pope Leo XIII taught and as now Pope Leo XIV appears ready to remind us (much like Pope Francis did), is hollow and empty.  Using Catholic Social Teaching terminology, the “preferential option for the poor” is paramount.

We at A Faith That Does Justice believe likewise.  In solidarity, we congratulate and welcome Father Bob now Pope Leo XIV,  not only as Pope of the Catholic Church but as pastor for the world – the leading spokesperson regardless of your faith or lack thereof for teaching morality, inspiring us to find and act on our noblest principles and impulses, and ceaselessly reminding us that indeed we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers.

References:

1. Rerum Novarum, particularly Paragraphs 1, 2, 32 through 37, and 63
2. The Busy Christian’s Guide to Catholic Social Teaching, US Catholic
3. NPR Radio Interview, Morning Edition, May 8, 2025
4. “Opinion: My Hometown Pope”, Scott Simon, NPR Saturday Weekend Edition May 10, 2025

Tom Dwyer is the President and Executive Director of A Faith That Does Justice.  He writes and speaks frequently about the imperatives of faith-filled social justice in building the common good and guiding our responses to political questions.