Pope Leo XIII - A Light in the Heavens: Great Encyclical Letters Of Pope Leo XIII

The Great Encyclical Letters of Pope Leo XIII

Plus Other Documents

Reigned 1878-1903. Prophesied by St. Malachy as Lumen in Coelo "A Light in the Heavens ."

Nihil Obstat:	Remigius Lafort, S.T.L.
Censor Librorum
Imprimatur:		John M. Farley
Archbishop of New York
New York
August 4, 1903

Copyright 1903 by Benziger Brothers, New York.

ISBN: 978-0-89555-529-8

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 95-60850

Cover picture of Pope Leo XIII photographed by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc. courtesy of St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York.

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com

1995

"Our epoch is rushing wildly along the straight road to destruction ."Pope Leo XIII Evils Affecting Modern Society

Pope Leo XIII1878-1903
Prophesied by St. Malachy as "A Light in the Heavens."

"When God, in His most wise providence, placed over human society both temporal and spiritual authority, He intended them to remain distinct indeed, but by no means disconnected and at war with each other. On the contrary, both the will of God and the common weal of human society imperatively require that the civil power should be in accord with the ecclesiastical in its rule and administration." Pope Leo XIII The Reunion of Christendom
"It would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced ."Pope Leo XIII Catholicity in the United States
" Legislation is the work of men invested with power, and who, in fact, govern the nation; therefore it follows that, practically, the quality of the laws depends more upon the quality of these men than upon the form of power. The laws will be good or bad accordingly as the minds of the legislators are imbued with good or bad principles, and as they allow themselves to be guided by political prudence or by passion ."Pope Leo XIII Allegiance to the Republic

PUBLISHER'S PREFACE

About the year 1140, St. Malachy, Bishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland, on a visit to Rome, prophesied about all the Popes from his own time till the End of Time. And the prophecy describing Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) was "A light in the heavens" ( Lumen in coelo ). And truly a "light" he wasand still isto a world fast descending into the darkness of neo-paganism.

Why, indeed, should one read the encyclical letters of a Pope who wrote a hundred years ago? The answer is simple: The problems he addressed are the very problems that still beleaguer individuals and society today and which threaten to destroy the last vestiges of good in both.

For these great encyclicals read more like the chapters of a mighty book, a book as from a great and holy doctor of the Church, a pious physician of souls and of society, than they do as merely separate epistles on disparate subjects. In The Condition of the Working Classes (Rerum Novarum 1891), Leo's most famous letter, one discovers, for example, the Pope speaking on all sorts of related topics, giving the Church's common-sense, completely logical position on them. So it is with all his encyclicals; they are not about just the subject at hand, but taken together, they cover in their discussion the entire panoply of human exigencies, showing withal the transforming effect of Christ's one, true, holy, Catholic, apostolic Church upon every element of man's life.

The array of topics covered by Pope Leo XIII in these his major encyclicals is truly amazing: Not only does he boldly expose the chief evils of his day (which continue to menace our own)namely, Liberalism, Secularism, Freemasonry, Socialism, Communism and Nihilismhe also makes the definitive statements on Anglican orders, the prohibition and censorship of books, Americanism, the condition of the working classes, the role and nature and types of government, private property, the duties of Christians as citizens, Christian Marriage, and so forth. But, as if these subjects were not enough, he treats also of the Holy Eucharist, the Holy Spirit, the study of Scripture, Scholastic philosophy, the epic contribution of Columbus, the unity of Faith, the reunion of Christendom and so on.

As already stated, these great encyclicals of Leo XIII read as the various chapters of a single, mighty book, all from a great and mighty mind. They show no evidence of being contrived and pieced together by assistant theologians, but reflect the synthesized and integrated thinking of a single brilliant intellect, one whose clear perspective of the past, present and future could only have been derived from the fabulously rich tradition of the Holy Catholic Church. Not only does he display a command of Scripture, theology, philosophy and government, but also of the history of our immediate and distant past, plus the direction in which our current history is taking us.

To our own age, bemused by a thousand errorsall heightened by the constant bombardment of T.V., cinema and the popular press, trumpeting their often foolish and contradictory ideasthe calm, learned, elevated, holy discussions of Pope Leo XIII (a great "Lion" of God) serve as a fresh breeze blowing away the stygian putrefaction arising from modern sin and error and present to us, truly, a "Light in the heavens" to guide our era to the safe haven of anchorage in Christ and in His holy Roman Catholic Church.

Where else will man today find that truth for which the human heart so longingly yearns than in the Church of Christ, the barque of Peter, the vessel from which He taught 2,000 years ago and from which today He still teaches, as He has in all ages past. Let the present reader, Catholic or otherwise, consider Pope Leo XIII's holy, integrated, common-sense solutions to man's problems today, and then compare them, if he will, to the meager, tawdry answers parroted and paraded in our mass media for a day or a week and then replaced with others even cheaper. Mankind today needs a ROCK to anchor to, and I propose, Dear Reader, you will find that rock within this book! It is none other than the Rock of Peter on which Christ founded His Church and to which Church He prophesied, "Behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." ( Matt . 28:20). And if Leo is a "light" to us all today, it is because he was the Vicar of Him who said, "I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth in me, may not remain in darkness." ( John 12:46).

Thomas A. Nelson
Publisher
July 8, 1995
St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal "Furthermore, that kind of civilization which conflicts with the doctrines and laws of holy Church is nothing but a worthless imitation and a meaningless name. Of this those peoples on whom the Gospel light has never shown afford ample proof, since in their mode of life a shadowy semblance only of civilization is discoverable, while its true and solid blessings have never been possessed. Undoubtedly that cannot by any means be accounted the perfection of civilized life which sets all legitimate authority boldly at defiance; nor can that be regarded as liberty which, shamefully and by the vilest means, spreading false principles, and freely indulging the sensual gratification of lustful desires, claims impunity for all crime and misdemeanor, and thwarts the goodly influence of the worthiest citizens of whatsoever class. Delusive, perverse, and misleading as are these principles, they cannot possibly have any inherent power to perfect the human race and fill it with blessing, for 'sin maketh nations miserable .' (Prov. 14:34). Such principles, as a matter of course, must hurry nations, corrupted in mind and heart, into every kind of infamy, weaken all right order, and thus, sooner or later, bring the standing and peace of the State to the very brink of ruin ."Pope Leo XIII Evils Affecting Modern Society Pages "Just as Christianity cannot penetrate in the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order... If it has transformed pagan society and that transformation was a veritable resurrectionfor barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the states and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church ."Pope Leo XIII Review of His Pontificate
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