Pope XIV takes on a changing world facing complex matters

This photo taken and handout on May 10, 2025, by The Vatican Media shows Pope Leo XIV during a meeting with cardinals in The Vatican. (Photo by Handout / VATICAN MEDIA / AFP)

When Pope Leo XIII ascended to the Papacy in 1873, the world thought it had reached the pinnacle of industrial revolution. Pope Leo XIV has this week arrived in not too dissimilar times. Only that science and tech has now spiralled into realities that pale the 18th and 19th Centuries.

Leo XIV has a very complex world to lead as the Pontifex Maximus. It is the world of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4iR). Leo XIII is famous for the Papal Letter of 1891, titled Rerum Novarum. This letter to the Catholic clergy addressed mostly labour relations and emerging social science philosophies that threatened the very existence of the Church. Within a very short period, starting from the 18th Century, Europe had transformed from a mainly agrarian society to a mechanised world. It would carry this profile of itself to the rest of the world.