What's in a name? The history of the papal name Leo
But we haven't had a Pope Leo in more than a century.
The last Pope Leo was Leo XIII, who was born in French-occupied Rome in 1810. He served as pope from 1878 until his death in 1903, making his 25-year papacy the fourth longest in the church's history.
Leo XIII is remembered as a pope of Catholic social teaching. He wrote a famous open letter to all Catholics in 1891, called 'Rerum Novarum' ('Of Revolutionary Change'). The pamphlet reflected on the destruction wrought by the Industrial Revolution on the lives of workers.
In a press briefing Thursday after the conclave, Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said the choice of name 'is a clear reference to the modern social doctrine of the Church, which began with Rerum Novarum.'
Bruni said the name Leo was a deliberate reference to 'men, women, their work, and workers in an age of artificial intelligence,' seeming to link the pace of technological change of the current era to that of the nineteenth century.
The first Pope Leo, who served in the fifth century, is known as 'Leo the Great,' and is remembered for persuading Attila the Hun to halt his invasion and spare the Roman Empire from destruction.
Their meeting was rendered in a 1514 painting by Raphael. The Renaissance work is now displayed in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, which the 133 voting cardinals – including Cardinal Robert Prevost, now Leo XIV – passed through as they proceeded into the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday for the start of the conclave.
In the painting, an unarmed Pope Leo – watched over by St. Peter and St. Paul – calmly confronts Attila and his army. Their meeting is celebrated by Catholics for showing that peaceful agreements can be reached without violence.
Leo XIV used his first words as pope to call for peace.
'Peace be with you,' he called out from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica. 'This was the first greeting of the risen Christ,' he said.
The name Leo derives from the Latin for 'lion,' suggesting strength and courage.
In his address from the balcony, Leo XIV said the church can still hear 'the weak but always courageous voice of Pope Francis,' his predecessor.
CNN's Sharon Braithwaite contributed reporting.
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Washington Post
13 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Eggs, tomatoes, sandwiches: The history of food as protest projectiles
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The angry father of Wilde's lover arrived at a performance of his hit play 'The Importance of Being Ernest' with a bouquet of vegetables he meant to throw, although he was turned away by police. And an actor in a New York Times story from a dozen years earlier was described as being 'demoralized by tomatoes' during a lackluster performance. It's unlikely, however, that tomatoes were thrown at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, as is sometimes described, since tomatoes weren't introduced in Europe until much later. Plenty of politicians, too, have been targeted by tomatoes (which are technically a fruit, not a vegetable, something the lawyers in the Trump deposition actually discussed in a very enjoyable aside.) Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was spared from a splat during a book signing at the Mall of America when the man lobbing the fruit at her from a balcony in 2009 missed; in 2012, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's motorcade in Egypt was hit. And while Trump's fear of lethal tomatoes (maybe he's been watching too many B movies?) is overestimated, they can hurt — particularly if you're whacked with a hard, unripe specimen. One of the rules of La Tomatina — the festival in Bunol, Spain, where participants sling tomatoes at one another in celebration — is that you smash the tomatoes before throwing them at another person, to lessen the impact (and maximize the squish?). Egging is a long-standing tradition, carried on by middle-schoolers and political activists alike. As with tomatoes, the rotten variety has more impact (i.e. stench). In 2022, a trucker convoy protesting outside the home of a Democratic state lawmaker in Oakland, California, was met with a volley of eggs, many tossed by kids annoyed by the intrusion of the big rigs. The origins of the practice go back centuries. In the 1871 novel 'Middlemarch,' a man's ill-fated run for Parliament includes a scene in which a mocking crowd pelts his image — and him — with eggs. Over the years, prominent U.S. politicians have taken shellings: Eggs were lobbed at Vice President Richard M. Nixon at several stops on his 1960 presidential campaign; Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) was similarly greeted on the presidential trail in 1980. President Bill Clinton took an incoming oeuf in 2001 during a trip to Poland. And California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger should probably win the title for most-agreeable target for his reaction to getting hit in the (considerable) shoulders during his 2003 campaign. He defended the egging as part of free speech and joked that the perpetrator 'owes me bacon now.' A pie to the face is a quintessential comedic stunt, and it's all the more primally satisfying when the object is a person of importance. The visual gag was popularized in vaudeville and in silent movies, and on-screen pieing became a cinematic staple, with practitioners such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges. Many a political mug has been mashed into a pie, some the work of collectives such as the Biotic Baking Brigade and Pie Kill, which targeted the rich and powerful with pastry. The pie-to-the face roll call includes San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, New York Mayor Abraham Beame, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-New York), Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Watergate plumber G. Gordon Liddy. A 2004 book by the Biotic Baking Brigade called 'Pie Any Means Necessary' offered practical advice for aspiring piers (selecting the right variety, aim and the like) as well as history and ruminations on the deeper meanings behind the prank, which it deemed a 'creative tool in the toolbox of resistance.' 'Pie-throwing utilizes carnival humor,' according to an essay in the book, 'unsettling the authority and control that those in power try to project.' 'Milkshaking' is a relatively more recent innovation. That could be because the milkshake itself has a shorter history than other commonly employed protest foods. It became a phenomenon employed against right-wing figures in the United Kingdom as Britain considered leaving the European Union. One protester tossed a banana-and-salted-caramel milkshake at Brexit leader Nigel Farage. Other targets included anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson, and anti-feminist political commentator Carl Benjamin, who was hit by a creamy treat on at least four occasions. A point against the practice is the cost, relative to, say, the moldy, leftover contents of one's produce drawer. But it has the advantage of being visually appealing — the sight of a suit-wearing stiff coated in sticky, drippy dairy is quite photogenic. And as The Washington Post reported at the time, 'attackers sipping shakes are far less conspicuous than bystanders clutching eggs.' 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Yahoo
11 hours ago
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Yahoo
a day ago
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Jimmy Kimmel Says He Secured Italian Citizenship amid Public Feud with Donald Trump
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