In the hill country, 100 miles north of Rome, lies the charming Italian Renaissance town of Perugia. I once spent a summer here as a student , and frequently walked past the old episcopal palace, little realizing that one of the most influential priests of the 19th century, lived and worked here for over thirty years. His is a fascinating but little-known story.
On a July day in 1846, Archbishop Gioacchino Pecci, riding a white horse and accompanied by papal gendarmes, arrived in Perugia and the populace turned out by the thousands to welcome him. It was the twilight hour of a world of princes and kings, where Church was supreme in both governmental and religious affairs, and Perugians were excited about the coming of their youthful spiritual leader.
He had been trained for high office. Pecci was born the sixth child of a family of the lower nobility, He received a classical education, and completed his theological studies at the Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics in Rome. Following his priestly ordination in 1837, he entered the diplomatic service of the Papal States, and held several administrative posts, prior to being appointed papal ambassador to Belgium.
The court of the Belgian king was a major step upward for the young diplomat. Belgium was one of the most progressive states of Europe and a mecca for intellectuals and revolutionaries. While in Brussels, Pecci had visited great modern factories, had seen cities illuminated by gaslight, and had ridden a railroad. He also witnessed, for the first time, large concentrations of industrial workers living in abject poverty.
Pecci as a young papal diplomat
Perugia, a city in the Pope’s Central Italian kingdom sitting in its “quiet tranquility,” was an entirely different matter. Lectures in the city’s secondary schools were still given in Latin, and most of the population could neither read nor write. Forms of piety had not changed for centuries. On Sundays, wealthier inhabitants gathered with their religious confraternities to attend Mass in elegant private chapels, while rural classes attended rundown country churches. Modern conveniences were largely unknown: mail required two days to arrive from Rome, and oxen were needed to drag carriages up the steep incline to the city. To all intents and purposes, the modern world had bypassed the city on the hill.
Somehow the youthful Archbishop adapted to his new role. He was often seen walking the streets of the town conversing with those he met, and within a few years he had opened an orphanage, created domiciles for needy women, repaired neglected rural churches, and improved the quality of seminary education. Fluent in French, German, and Latin, the archbishop manifested his love for learning in elegantly written annual Lenten letters to his “dear people” in which he discussed broad issues, quoting classical Greek and Roman authors, modern economists, and even Benjamin Franklin. In 1853, Pecci was elevated to the rank of cardinal and became leader and spokesperson for regional bishops and clergy.
There was little about him to dislike, and even atheists and Protestants counted him as a friend. The genteel prelate chose his words carefully, listened closely, and always showed himself a faithful servant of the Holy Father in Rome. An English visitor described the cardinal as “a fine-looking man, very tall” wearing “scarlet robes.” Surrounded by clerics and civic leaders in black velvet, he was a frequent presence at public events. Pecci was popular with the people and his 30th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood was celebrated by an outpouring of affection. He was particularly revered by the lowest classes of society.
But the apparent tranquility of this land of medieval castles, vineyards, and olive groves was not destined to last. In 1859, armed revolutionaries seized the city government, and shortly afterward were put down by the Swiss troops in a bloody reprisal. Within a year, the Northern Italian army entered the city, closed most of its convents, monasteries, and seminaries, and seized the landholdings whose revenues sustained the church. Papal officials, Pecci excepted, were escorted out of the province under police guard. The once wealthy diocese was impoverished, and the cardinal, beset by problems of taxes, real estate, and indigent priests and religious struggled to defend church against a hostile, secularist government. Notwithstanding the difficulties, he was among the minority of Italian bishops who believed that reconciliation between the Church and “modern culture” was still possible.
Meanwhile, he continued to observe the social changes sweeping Europe caused by the industrial revolution. Visitors from Belgium kept him aware of the worsening situation of workers in the steel mils and mines, and he had seen first-hand the impoverished masses of field workers in southern Italy. Pecci became an avid reader of the works of German Archbishop of Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler whose writings challenged Karl Marx’s conviction that only class violence could resolve the social inequalities. He was also following lay Catholic thinkers in France and Austria, either through their writings or firsthand contact.
This effort came to fruition in a widely read 1877 pastoral letter titled “The Church and Civilization,” that was read well beyond the Italian peninsula. Pecci wrote how in polite society, “labor is respected …in words, but men… do not smile upon those whose hands are hardened from contact with implements of toil.” He affirmed the God-given dignity of all forms of work, including rudimentary manual labor, and condemned excessive working hours, poor working conditions, and child labor. What later became common Catholic teaching, was at the time considered radical by many.
Pecci’s “Church and Civilization” was reprinted in numerous languages including English, and widely read. At the time of its writing, Pecci had served in the relative obscurity of Perugia for 32 years.
Shortly after the publication of his letter, Pius IX died and Cardinal Gioacchino Pecci was elected to succeed him. Taking the name Leo XIII, the new pontiff met regularly with theologians and leading Catholic intellectuals discussing issues of the working classes, and the product of this work was the landmark encyclical Rerum Novarum. Going beyond his earlier writings, Leo XIII approved the right of workers to form labor unions and condemned both socialist collectivization and unfettered capitalism. The document, was frequently referred to in succeeding decades, and became the foundation stone of contemporary Catholic social doctrine. In Rerum Novarum, the genteel prelate opened a new and indelible chapter in the life of the Church.