Why he chose the name Leo XIV

Robert Francis Prevost, 267th Pope of the Catholic Church, has chosen the name Leo XIV. The new Pontiff was inspired in his choice of name by Leo XIII, born Gioacchino Pecci, who was the 256th Pope from February 1878 until his death on 20 July 1903.

Leo XIII was a Pope with such strong socio-political connotations that he is in fact remembered as the Pope of encyclicals: he wrote no less than 86 of them, with the aim of overcoming the isolation in which the Holy See had found itself after the loss of temporal power with the Unification of Italy. The most famous was 'Rerum Novarum'.

This marked a turning point in the Catholic Church, which was now ready to face the challenges of modernity as an international spiritual leader. In this sense he was rightly given the name Workers' Pope and Social Pope: in fact he wrote the first explicitly social encyclical in the history of the Catholic Church and thus formulated the foundations of the modern social doctrine of the Church. Leo XIII's pontificate was one of the longest in the history of the Church since it lasted an impressive 25 years 5 months and 5 days.

Another peculiarity is that Leo XIII was the first Pope in history to appear on video.

In the first case, in front of William K.L. Dickson's camera, he gave the first 'media' blessing in the history of the Holy See; in the second, a few months before his death, on 5 February 1903, his voice was recorded on a phonograph cylinder (Bettini Phonogramme-B mx 1-D) as he recited the Hail Mary in Latin and the apostolic blessing formula.