Features of Catholic Mariology in the Context of Social Policy of the Pontificate of Leo XIII

Abstract

This article is devoted to the characteristic features of Catholic Mariology appeared in the pontificate of Leo XIII (1878–1903), the last Pope of Rome in the 19th century and the first pontiff of the 20th century (1878–1903). Based on a sincere personal position expressed in the official documents of his pontificate, Leo XIII contributed to an even greater veneration of the Virgin Mary as a consolidating factor for Catholics and a religious response to the secularized bourgeois society, attaching great importance to the faith in the Virgin Mary in the Catholic Church, which was under increased pressure from secular anti-clericals. This, however, gave rise to new speculative aspects of Catholic Mariology, comprehended from the perspective of Orthodoxy in this study. In the context of this problem, the article presents a critical analysis of the Marial magisterium of Leo XIII — a specific and extremely interesting field of the theological and literary heritage of this Pontiff, which is almost not studied by domestic theological science. In addition, it was Leo XIII who was the first of the Roman popes to propose a Christian understanding of life as the main tool for resolving the social contradictions of the bourgeois world, thanks to which the activity of the Roman Church for more than half a century, up to the Second Vatican Council, acquired a pronounced social orientation, marked by the appearance of «marial» monkhood, connected with the charity, educational and medical activity. Thus, the strengthening of the veneration of the Virgin Mary, carried out by Leo XIII, became an essential part of the religious basis for implementing the ideas of social Catholicism, which pursued the goal of improving the life of unfortunate without the bloody classic battle. A separate side of the article is an attempt to highlight the issue related to the specifics of the Catholic veneration of the Holy Family, which is inseparable from the issues of interest to us.

Keywords

• romаn catholic church
• virgin maria
• holy family
• roman pope leo xiii
• social-political doctrine
• mariology
• west europe