What's in a name? Pope Leo XIV's choice signals a commitment to social justice.
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The name 'is a deep sign of commitment to social issues,' said Imperatori-Lee. 'I think this (new) pope is saying something about social justice, by choosing this name, that it is going to be a priority. He is continuing a lot of Francis' ministry.'
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni confirmed that choice of the name Leo was a reference to Leo XIII and the social doctrine of the church, in particular the Rerum Novarum encyclical, considered the Catholic Church's first social encyclical.
Another predecessor, Pope Leo I, was known for repelling the barbarian invasion of Atilla the Hun in 452 A.D. and dissuading him from sacking Rome through diplomacy, Italian Cardinal Mauro Piacenza told RAI Italian state TV. He also noted that Pope Leo XIII elevated the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii to a papal basilica in 1901.
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Leo could also refer to Brother Leo, the 13th century friar who was a great companion of St. Francis of Assisi. By choosing such a name, the new pope could be signaling also a very strong continuity with Francis, who named himself after the saint.
For most of the Catholic Church's first millennium, popes used their given names. The first exception was the 6th century Roman Mercurius, who had been named for a pagan god and chose the more appropriate name of John II.
The practice of adopting a new name became ingrained during the 11th century, a period of German popes who chose names of early church bishops out of 'a desire to signify continuity,' according to Rev. Roberto Regoli, a historian at Rome's Pontifical Gregorian University.
For many centuries, new popes tended to choose the name of the pope who had elevated them to cardinal. John was the most popular, chosen by 23 popes, followed by Benedict and Gregory, each with 16.
It was from the mid-20th century that new popes began to choose names signaling the aim of their papacy, Regoli said.
AP writers Nicole Winfield and Vanessa Gera contributed from Rome.
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VATICAN CITY (AP) — When Pope Leo XIV surprised tens of thousands of young people at a recent Holy Year celebration with an impromptu popemobile romp around St. Peter's Square, it almost seemed as if some of the informal spontaneity that characterized Pope Francis' 12-year papacy had returned to the Vatican. But the message Leo delivered that night was all his own: In seamless English, Spanish and Italian, Leo told the young people that they were the 'salt of the Earth, the light of the world.' He urged them to spread their hope, faith in Christ and their cries of peace wherever they go. As Robert Prevost marks his 100th day as Pope Leo this weekend, the contours of his pontificate have begun to come into relief, primarily where he shows continuity with Francis and where he signals change. Perhaps the biggest takeaway is that after 12 sometimes turbulent years under Francis, a certain calm and reserve have returned to the papacy. 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Even his signature issue — confronting the promise and peril posed by artificial intelligence — is something that conservatives and progressives alike agree is important. Francis' emphasis on caring for the environment and migrants often alienated conservatives. Closer to home, Leo offered the Holy See bureaucracy a reassuring, conciliatory message after Francis' occasionally authoritarian style rubbed some in the Vatican the wrong way. 'Popes come and go, but the Curia remains,' Leo told Vatican officials soon after his May 8 election. Continuity with Francis is still undeniable Leo, though, has cemented Francis' environmental legacy by celebrating the first-ever ecologically inspired Mass. He has furthered that legacy by giving the go-ahead for the Vatican to turn a 430-hectare (1,000-acre) field north of Rome into a vast solar farm that should generate enough electricity to meet Vatican City's needs and turn it into the world's first carbon-neutral state. He has fine-tuned financial transparency regulations that Francis initiated, tweaked some other decrees to give them consistency and logic, and confirmed Francis in deciding to declare one of the 19th century's most influential saints, John Henry Newman, a 'doctor' of the church. But he hasn't granted any sit-down, tell-all interviews or made headline-grabbing, off-the-cuff comments like his predecessor did. He hasn't made any major appointments, including to fill his old job, or taken any big trips. In marking the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki last week, he had a chance to match Francis' novel declaration that the mere possession of nuclear weapons was 'immoral.' But he didn't. Compared to President Donald Trump, the other American world leader who took office in 2025 with a flurry of Sharpie-penned executive decrees, Leo has eased into his new job slowly, deliberately and quietly, almost trying not to draw attention to himself. 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An Augustinian pope From his very first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, Leo has insisted he is first and foremost a 'son of St. Augustine. ' It was a reference to the fifth century theological and devotional giant of early Christianity, St. Augustine of Hippo, who inspired the 13th century religious Augustinian order as a community of 'mendicant' friars. Like the other big mendicant orders of the early church — the Franciscans, Dominicans and Carmelites — the Augustinians spread across Christian Europe over the centuries. Today, Augustinian spirituality is rooted in a deep interior life of prayer, living in community, and journeying together in search of truth in God. In nearly every speech or homily since his May 8 election, Leo has cited Augustine in one way or another. 'I see a kind of Augustinian flavor in the way that he's presenting all these things,' said Hughes, the theology professor who is an Augustine scholar. Leo joined the Augustinians after graduating from Augustinian-run Villanova, outside Philadelphia, and was twice elected its prior general. He has visited the Augustinian headquarters outside St. Peter's a few times since his election, and some wonder if he will invite some brothers to live with him in the Apostolic Palace to recreate the spirit of Augustinian community life there. A missionary pope in the image of Francis Leo is also very much a product of the Francis papacy. Francis named Prevost bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014 and then moved him to head one of the most important Vatican jobs in 2023 — vetting bishop nominations. In retrospect, it seems Francis had his eye on Prevost as a possible successor. Given Francis' stump speech before the 2013 conclave that elected him pope, the then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio essentially described Prevost in identifying the church's mission today: He said the church was 'called to go outside of itself and go to the peripheries, not just geographic but also the existential peripheries.' Prevost, who hails from Chicago, spent his adult life as a missionary in Peru, eventually becoming bishop of Chiclayo. 'He is the incarnation of the 'unity of difference,' because he comes from the center, but he lives in the peripheries,' said Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America. Cuda said during a recent conference hosted by Georgetown University that Leo encapsulated in 'word and gesture' the type of missionary church Francis promoted. That said, for all Leo owes to Bergoglio, the two didn't necessarily get along. 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