Pope Leo XIII Quotes

1810–1903

Pope Leo XIII (born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was the head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 to his death in 1903. He was the oldest pope (reigning until the age of 93), with the exception of Pope Benedict XVI as emeritus pope, and had the third-longest confirmed pontificate, behind those of Pius IX (his immediate predecessor) and John Paul II.

Also known as: Leo XIII

Random Pope Leo XIII quote

9 quotes

The best parent and guardian of liberty amongst men is truth.

Encyclical: Immortale Dei (1885)

Whoever has received from the divine bounty a large share of temporal blessings, whether they be external and material, or gifts of the mind, has received them for the purpose of using them for the perfecting of his own nature, and, at the same time, that he may employ them, as the steward of God's providence, for the benefit of others.

Rerum novarum (1891)

The worst kind of heretic is one who, teaching for the most part true Catholic doctrine, adds a word of heresy like a drop of poison in a glass of water."

Base trade in human beings carried on in the most barbarous fashion, those who wield power, those who sway empires, those who desire that the rights of nature and humanity be respected, and those who desire the progress of religion, to unite everywhere towards the abolition of this most shameful and most criminal traffic.

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice.

Encyclical: Immortale Dei 31 (1885)

The sect of Freemasons grew with a rapidity beyond conception in the course of a century and a half, until it came to be able, by means of fraud or of audacity, to gain such entrance into every rank of the State as to seem to be almost its ruling power.