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I well knew your present King’s father and pious mother. I was often admitted to the friendly intimacy of the royal family, and I have held the little Leopold, Duke of Brabant, in my arms. I remember that good Christian, Queen Marie Louise, asking me to give my benediction to her eldest son, then eight or nine years old, so that he might become a good king.

— Pope Leo XIII

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Pope Leo XIII: His Life And Work, Julien De Narfon, 1923 As King Leopold I belonged to the Protestant religion, the influence acquired by Mgr. Pecci over his Majesty was all the more remarkable. As for Queen Marie Louise, who was a fervent Catholic, she admired the Prelate’s virtues still more than his diplomatic skill.

More quotes by Pope Leo XIII

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)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Pope Leo XIII (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.