Pope Leo XIII

Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci was born in 1810 in Carpineto Romano, near Rome, into a family of minor nobility. He was educated by the Jesuits at Viterbo and in Rome and studied at the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics, which trained priests for diplomatic service. Ordained in 1837, he served as papal legate in Benevento and Perugia and as nuncio in Belgium, and in 1846 he became bishop of Perugia, where he remained for more than thirty years; he was made a cardinal in 1853. In 1878 he was elected pope, taking the name Leo XIII. He encouraged the study of Thomas Aquinas, opened the Vatican Archives to scholars, and sought better relations with governments. His encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), on the condition of workers, defended private property while supporting fair wages, decent working conditions and workers' right to form unions, and it rejected both socialism and unrestricted capitalism. It became the founding document of modern Catholic social teaching. He also promoted devotion to the rosary. He died in Rome in 1903, aged 93, after one of the longest reigns in papal history.

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Faith: Elected pope in 1878 and served until his death in 1903. Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)