While the political avant-garde called for wider and wider liberte, he reminded the world that true liberty cannot be attained in separation from the moral law. While the wise of the world were echoing the last strains of Rationalism, Leo opted for, of all things, a return to Scholasticism. His message was at once as old as Christian Europe itself and as young as the electric light bulb, that illuminating symbol which for many so perfectly represented the new era into which Europe was moving-the twentieth century, the age of light, the triumph of reason. He was neither monarchist nor republican, neither reactionary nor liberal. His name was Leo, the thirteenth to be so called, and he stood at the head of a Church just recently humbled by its loss of temporal power. 5Īs the leaders of the major European states jockeyed for position during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, one leader alone, a man stripped of power though not of authority, stood in distinct transcendence of the competing factions and ideologies which would in a few short years throw all Europe into war. Free eBook: Liturgical Year 2022-2023, Vol.
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