The Pope of “New Things”: Leo XIII’s Legacy in Pope Leo XIV’s Vision

From Rerum Novarum to the age of artificial intelligence: Pope Leo XIV says he chose his name to carry forward Leo XIII’s mission of confronting the “new things” of society.

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Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be sharing a series of deeply reported essays that, together, offer the most complete portrait yet of Pope Leo — not just his own life and formation, but also the circle of people he trusts most as he begins his pontificate.

But before we dive deeper into Leo XIV himself, it’s worth pausing to ask: why did he choose the name Leo in the first place?

Today’s essay turns to Pope Leo XIII — the 19th-century pope who inspired our own. He was the first to confront the “new things” of his era with moral clarity. Today, Leo XIV is doing the same in the age of AI, and he’s made it clear that Leo XIII’s legacy is lighting the path forward.

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When Pope Leo XIV stepped out onto the St. Peter’s balcony for the first time earlier this year, even his choice of name sent a message. He was deliberately reaching back over a century.

Just two days after his election, the new pope confirmed to the cardinals that he took the name “Leo” as a tribute to Pope Leo XIII, the visionary who “addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution” with the encyclical Rerum Novarum.

Time and again since, Pope Leo XIV has made it clear why: he sees his namesake’s example as a guide for today’s turbulent times.

In his words, the rise of artificial intelligence and other rapid technological changes pose “new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor” — challenges he intends to confront with the same faith-fueled courage that Leo XIII showed in 1891.

Leo XIII and the “New Things” of 1891

To understand Leo XIV’s inspiration, we must look at Pope Leo XIII himself.