New pope chooses Leo as his papal identify. Here is why pontiffs change their names and what they imply.

Cardinal Robert Prevost has been introduced as the brand new pontiff and has chosen the identify Pope Leo XIV.

There are not any written guidelines or official standards for a pope’s identify, however they select names which have which means within the Catholic custom.

The importance of a pope’s identify

The identify a brand new pope chooses will “point out a sure spirit and route and imaginative and prescient of the brand new pope,” mentioned Dennis Doyle, a theologian and professor emeritus of non secular research on the College of Dayton.

“The very first thing that you’d search for can be, which popes had that identify earlier than?” he mentioned. “That will signify one thing in regards to the route that the pope needs to take.”

Leo has been chosen 13 instances earlier than.

“The identify Leo harkens again to Pope Leo the Nice,” the primary pope with the identify Leo, CBS Information papal contributor Candida Moss mentioned Thursday.

Also called Pope Leo I, his papacy was from 440 to 461. He is well-known for assembly with Attila the Hun and dissuading him from attacking Rome.

“What does this imply for our new pope? Effectively, it’d imply that he too goes to face as much as oppressive political forces on this planet,” Moss mentioned.

Leo I is also referred to as “an incredible mental and theological reformer,” Moss mentioned. He wrote Leo’s Tome, a doc that influenced the official doctrine defining Jesus Christ as each totally human and totally divine.

“Our new pope has a doctorate in canon legislation, so we would anticipate that he too goes to make clear the church’s teachings on central points,” Moss mentioned.

Doyle additionally pointed to the final pope to make use of the identify Leo, Pope Leo XIII, who was the pinnacle of the Catholic Church between 1878 and 1903.

“He’s maybe most well-known for writing the Rerum Novarum,” Doyle mentioned, which interprets to “On New Issues,” however the Latin which means can also be “On Revolutionary Adjustments.”

The Rerum Novarum addressed employees’ rights and capitalism on the daybreak of the economic age and is taken into account the primary Catholic social encyclical, laying the inspiration for contemporary Catholic social thought. 

This might point out that Pope Leo XIV is “in selling Catholic social instructing in right now’s world,” Doyle mentioned. “Perhaps Catholic social instructing, if taken severely, may very well be one thing to assist overcome polarization.”

The identify Leo “is a deep signal of dedication to social points,” Natalia Imperatori-Lee, the chair of non secular research at Manhattan College, instructed The Related Press. 

Due to that, Pope Leo XIV’s alternative of identify additionally suggests a continuation of a lot of Pope Francis’ ministry.

Pope Francis, whose start identify was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, selected a papal identify that hadn’t been chosen by a pope earlier than, so in his case, “you must ask, properly, are there any biblical figures or individuals within the custom who’ve had that identify?” Doyle mentioned.

For Francis, it was St. Francis of Assisi, identified for his charity and ease.

What are the commonest papal names?

The names most utilized by popes have been:

• John: 23 instances
• Benedict: 16 instances
• Gregory: 16 instances
• Clement: 14 instances
• Leo: 14 instances
• Harmless: 13 instances
• Pius: 12 instances

As with the identify Leo, “there may very well be a couple of reference within the identify that the pope chooses,” Doyle defined.

Pope Benedict XVI paid homage to Benedict XV, who led the church throughout World Conflict I, but in addition to St. Benedict of Nursia, who based the Benedictine Order and influenced the unfold of Christianity all through Europe. 

The identify John, the most well-liked, may refer again to the Gospel of John, which is one in all “essentially the most beloved of the gospels,” Doyle mentioned. It could possibly additionally confer with St. John the Baptist, the prophet who baptized Jesus.

Have popes all the time modified their names?

Not each pope in historical past has modified his identify. Out of 266 popes earlier than Pope Leo XIV, 129 have chosen new names, in response to Vatican Information. 

The observe turned extra ingrained across the eleventh century, a interval of German popes who selected names of early church bishops out of “a want to suggest continuity,” Rev. Roberto Regoli, a historian at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian College, instructed the AP. 

For a lot of centuries, new popes tended to decide on the identify of the pope who had elevated them to cardinal. 

Solely beginning within the mid-Twentieth century did new popes start to decide on names signaling the goal of their papacy, Regoli mentioned.

Names by no means chosen by a pope

Some biblical names that have not been utilized by a pope are Joseph, James and Andrew.

Popes additionally haven’t chosen the identify Peter, out of respect for St. Peter, a disciple of Jesus who’s acknowledged as the primary pope, specialists say.

contributed to this report.