What Pope Leo’s namesake tells us

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The last time the Catholic Church had a Pope Leo, the workers of the world were uniting in response to the second Industrial Revolution. European and American sons of farmers were moving to cities and becoming factory workers, upending lives and communities across Europe and the United States.

In response, Pope Leo XIII in 1891 published an encyclical (a letter to all bishops around the world) titled Rerum Novarum that addressed the rights of the working man and the dangers of both industrial capitalism and socialism.

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