



Produced by Michael Gray, Diocese of San Jose




LEO XIII, THE GREAT LEADER

By Rev. A. P. Doyle


Written in August 1903,
in _The Catholic World_, a monthly magazine,
on the occasion of the death of Pope Leo XIII.




[Portrait of Pope Leo XIII.]

  _My course I've run of ninety lengthening years.
     From Thee the gift. Crown them with endless bliss.
  O hearken to Thy Leo's prayers and tears,
     Lest useless they should prove, O grant him this._



Leo XIII.'s Message to the Twentieth Century:

The greatest misfortune is never to have known Jesus Christ. Christ is
the fountain-head of all good. Mankind can no more be saved without
His power than it can be redeemed without His mercy.

When Jesus Christ is absent human reason fails, being bereft of its
chief protection and light: and the very end is lost sight of for
which, under God's providence, human society has been built up.

To reject Dogma is simply to deny Christianity. It is evident that
they whose intellects reject the yoke of Christ are obstinately
striving against God. Having shaken off God's authority, they are by
no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway.

God alone is life. All other beings partake of life, but they are not
life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life,"
just as He is "the Truth," because He is God of God. If any one abide
not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and
they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth
(John xv. 6).

Once remove all impediments and allow the spirit of Christ to revive
and grow in a nation, and that nation shall be healed.

The world has heard enough of the so-called "rights of man."