Leo XII, a Strict and Austere Pope Who Cared About the Poor

He was a humble man. Buried before the Altar of St Leo the Great, his epitaph describes him as “a humble devotee, the smallest of the heirs of such a great name.”

From Aleteia

By I. Media

Annibale Sermattei della Genga was born on August 2, 1760, near Ancona, into a family of papal nobility. The sixth of ten children, he was destined for a career in the Church. After his ordination in 1783, he was sent to the Pontifical Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles, the predecessor of the school that still trains nuncios, the Vatican's ambassadors.

A successful figure in worldly society, he was entrusted by Pope Pius VI with the task of delivering the funeral oration for Emperor Joseph II of Austria in 1790.

Surrounded by growing fame, he began a diplomatic career as apostolic nuncio during the turbulent period of the Napoleonic Wars. He was created cardinal in 1816 by Pius VII and was entrusted with the vicariate of Rome, among other duties.

His diplomatic missions ended in relative failure, as his views diverged from those of Pius VII's Secretary of State, Cardinal Ercole Consalvi (1757-1824), the key figure in the negotiations for the Concordat signed with Napoleon and the restoration of the Papal States.

Celebrating a jubilee in a century of turmoil

Despite his reputation for moral intransigence and fragile health, Annibale Sermattei della Genga was elected pope in 1823, taking the name Leo XII. His pontificate lasted only six years but was marked by major events.

He was the only pope in the 19th century to celebrate a Jubilee—a major event in the Catholic Church celebrated every 25 years—as those of 1800, 1850, and 1875 were prevented by the vagaries of history. Leo VII wanted to make the Holy Year of 1825 a time of spiritual—and authoritarian—reform for the city of Rome. He intended to “resacralize” it, particularly after the invasion of French troops and the confiscation of the pope's temporal power over Rome at the beginning of the century.

Strict but humble

In the same vein, at the beginning of his pontificate, he left the gilded palaces of the Quirinal Palace for the Vatican, which had been abandoned for two centuries and was considered more austere. A relatively unpopular pope, he devoted himself in particular to putting the poorest back at the center of the Church and to suppressing liberal and revolutionary movements.

Among the decisions of his magisterium, Leo VII declared a “perpetual” ban on Masonic lodges in the papal bull Quo Graviora, also condemning their derivatives such as the “Carbonari.”

The French writer François-René de Chateaubriand, who was French ambassador to the Holy See during the pontificate of Leo XII, described him in his Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe: "Leo XII, a prince of great stature and with a serene yet sad air, is dressed in a simple white cassock. He has no pomp and stands in a poor room, almost without furniture."

The 252nd pope of the Catholic Church is buried in St. Peter's Basilica, according to his wishes, according to Vatican News: in a simple earthen tomb in front of the altar of St. Leo the Great (Leo I), where his epitaph describes him as “a humble devotee, the smallest of the heirs of such a great name.”

Earlier in the series: Leo the Great, Leo II, Leo III, Leo IV, Leo V, Leo VI, Leo VII, Leo VIII, Leo IX, Leo X, Leo XI