Pope Leo XII (1760-1829)

The election of Leo XII marks a turning point in the history of the 19th-century papacy. Under Pius VII, Cardinal Consalvi had pursued a policy of compromise: preserving the essentials through negotiation, accepting what could be accepted from the new world, and governing the restored Papal States with relative moderation. Leo XII, elevated to the throne by the opposing party, chose the opposite path: doctrinal firmness and political reaction.^[11][12]

This choice was not a mere whim of temperament. It responded to a deep conviction, shared by a whole current of cardinals: the French Revolution, the Empire, liberalism, and secret societies were not past accidents but a continuous attack against the Christian faith and order. For the zelanti, the Church must not negotiate with this spirit: it must condemn it and restore Christian society. Leo XII governed with this perspective from his first to his last day.

“He sought to suppress the growing forces of liberalism and sympathized with sovereigns who sought to restore the conditions of the Ancien Régime.” — From the New Catholic Encyclopedia, art. “Leo XII”^[13]

This is what makes him a pivotal and debated figure. His inner rigor was real: he was personally austere, pious, and selfless, attentive to the poor.^[14] But his policy of uncompromising restoration fueled liberal opposition in the Papal States and prepared the crises his successors would face. Details on Freemasonry, the Jubilee as an institution, or the Society of Jesus belong to separate articles; what is specifically Leo XII’s legacy is having embodied the intransigent option of the Restoration.

Before becoming the pope of the Restoration, Annibale della Genga was for thirty years a diplomat of the Holy See, trained at the courts of Central Europe during the most turbulent period of modern history. This long career as a nuncio explains both his knowledge of affairs and his lasting mistrust of everything stemming from the Revolution.

A Provincial Nobility of the Marches

Annibale Francesco Clemente Melchiorre Girolamo Nicola della Genga was born on 22 August 1760 at the castle of della Genga, in the territory of Spoleto, on the border of the Marches and Umbria^[15][16] — baptismal name without “Sermattei” according to Miranda, who attaches that name to the pope’s nephew, Cardinal Gabriele della Genga Sermattei^[17]. He was the sixth of ten children of Count Ilario della Genga and Maria Luisa Periberti di Fabriano, a family of the provincial nobility whose arms had been recognized by the popes.^[18] Early destined for the Church, he studied at the Campana College in Osimo and then in Rome at the Academy of Ecclesiastical Nobles, the school for future pontifical diplomats.^[19]

The Priest and Diplomat: Nuncio at Lucerne and Cologne

Ordained priest in 1783, della Genga was noted for his bearing, eloquence, and voice.^[20] He became Camerlengo of Pius VI and then canon of Saint Peter’s (1792). He was created titular archbishop of Tyre in 1793^[21][22], then consecrated on 24 February 1794 and sent as nuncio to Lucerne, Switzerland.^[23] The same year, he was transferred to the nunciature at Cologne (1794-1802 according to the Oxford Reference chronology; Miranda bounds the active mission from 14 March 1794 to 1800^[24]) — but with the Revolutionary Wars disrupting the Rhineland, he actually resided in Augsburg.^[25][26]

From there, he was entrusted with delicate missions to the German courts — Dresden, Vienna, Munich, Stuttgart — and even came into contact with the rising French power.^[27] These years gave him direct knowledge of Protestant and revolutionary Europe, but they ended in difficulty: his diplomatic efforts, caught in the Napoleonic turmoil, were often unsuccessful.^[28]

The Parisian Failure and the Monticelli Retreat

In 1814, at the fall of the Empire, Pius VII appointed him nuncio to Paris to the restored Louis XVIII. The mission was short-lived: he was reproached for his slowness in reaching France and his inability to prevent the definitive transfer of Avignon to the French crown. He was recalled almost immediately.^[29] Disappointed and semi-disgraced, della Genga retired for a time to the abbey of Monticelli, near Spoleto, where he led a life of prayer and austerity.^[30] This retreat, far from sidelining him permanently, completed the formation of the inner man who would soon ascend the throne of Peter.

Cardinal, Bishop of Senigallia, Vicar of Rome

Della Genga’s career revived thanks to Pius VII, who created him cardinal-priest of the title of Santa Maria in Trastevere on 8 March 1816, and appointed him bishop of Senigallia (Sinigaglia).^[31][32][33] His fragile health forced him to resign this see — in 1818 according to the usual chronology, as early as 10 September 1816 according to Miranda, without ever entering it.^[34][35] But the pope soon entrusted him with a far more strategic role: on 12 May 1820, he became Vicar General of Rome (he had received the prefecture of Ecclesiastical Immunity on 9 May^[36]), that is, the ecclesiastical administrator of the City and the pope’s arm for the Roman diocese.^[37] In this position, Cardinal della Genga proved rigorous and close to the zelanti party. It was from here that he entered the 1823 conclave as one of the leaders of the intransigent faction.

At the death of Pius VII on 20 August 1823, one of the most contested conclaves of the century opened. Of the 53 members then in the College of Cardinals, forty-nine gathered at the Quirinal from 2 September (four absent); for almost all of them, it was a first conclave.^[38] The issue was clear: should the moderate line of Consalvi be continued, or overturned?

Zelanti versus Politicanti

The Sacred College was divided into two camps. The politicanti (“politicians”), heirs of Consalvi and supported by Austrian interests, wanted a diplomatic pope, ready to negotiate with the States and with the modern age; they rallied behind Cardinal Castiglioni, the future Pius VIII. Opposing them, the zelanti (“zealous ones”) demanded a pope of spiritual and political restoration, hostile to secularizing reforms; they initially supported Cardinal Antonio Gabriele Severoli.^[39]

“The zelanti wanted a strongly centralized Church and vehement opposition to secularizing reforms; they supported Severoli, who wished to restore the moral and spiritual foundations of the Church.” — According to Wikipedia, article “1823 papal conclave”^[40]

The Veto Against Severoli: The Austrian Exclusive

Severoli was on the verge of victory when Austria intervened. Cardinal Giuseppe Albani, representing Emperor Francis I, announced that Severoli’s election would be unacceptable to Vienna and pronounced a formal veto — the ancient jus exclusivae that Catholic powers still claimed to exercise.^[41][42] The zelanti, furious, only half yielded: on the advice of Severoli himself, sidelined but master of his votes, they shifted their support to Cardinal della Genga.^[43]

“You Elect a Dead Man”: The Election of a Sick Man

On the morning of 28 September 1823, della Genga was elected by thirty-four votes, even before the powers fully grasped what was at stake.^[44] He took the name Leo XII. The elected pope hesitated long before accepting^[45]: gravely ill, he warned the cardinals: “You elect a dead man.”^[46] He was crowned on 5 October 1823.^[47]

“Conservative, yet ineffective due to his advanced age and meticulous temperament, the elderly della Genga was accepted because he was not expected to live long.” — According to Wikipedia, article “Pope Leo XII”^[48]

On May 5, 1824, Leo XII published his first encyclical, Ubi primum, addressed to the entire episcopate. It is the manifesto of his reign: he sets out the diagnosis and remedies for a Church he judges to be besieged on all sides.^[49]

Raising up the clergy

The pope’s primary concern is the reform of the clergy, whose ranks had been scattered and impoverished by the Revolution. Leo XII exhorts the bishops to oversee the formation, discipline, and holiness of their priests, reminding them of the words of Saint Peter quoted in the encyclical.

“Feed the flock of God that is entrusted to you, watching over it not by constraint but willingly, for God’s love, not for shameful gain but eagerly.” — Ubi primum, May 5, 1824, quoting the First Epistle of Saint Peter^[50]

Against indifferentism and Bible societies

The pope then denounces religious indifferentism—the idea that all religions are equal and that everyone can freely choose their own without danger to their salvation. This “tolerance” seems to him a dissolution of revealed truth.

“[This sect teaches that] God has given each individual wide freedom to embrace and adopt, without danger to their salvation, any sect or opinion they please, based on their private judgment.” — Ubi primum, May 5, 1824^[51]

He also strongly attacks the Protestant Bible societies, which spread translations of the Bible into the vernacular without notes or Church oversight. For Leo XII, these versions disseminated outside Tradition risked distorting the meaning of Scripture rather than illuminating it.

“It works by all means to have the holy Bible translated—or rather mistranslated—into the ordinary languages of each nation.” — Ubi primum, May 5, 1824^[52]

These positions, harsh to modern ears, must be read in context: it is not a matter of despising Scripture—the Church is its guardian—but of refusing an unregulated dissemination which, at the time, often served an anti-Roman proselytizing strategy. Leo XII’s concern is that the Bible be read within the Church, not against it.

The most illustrious act of the pontificate is the restoration of the Jubilee. According to tradition, a Holy Year should open every twenty-five years to offer the faithful a plenary indulgence and a great movement of pilgrimage and penance. Yet the one of 1800 could not be celebrated: the papacy was then decapitated, Pius VI had just died in captivity, and Rome was occupied.^[53]

Leo XII decided to resume this interrupted tradition. By the bull of indiction Quod hoc ineunte (May 24, 1824), he solemnly proclaimed the Jubilee of 1825.^[54] The success exceeded expectations: more than 325,000 pilgrims flocked from all over Europe to Rome, despite the reluctance of some princes and prelates.^[55] A material difficulty marked the year: the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, one of the four jubilee basilicas, had just been ravaged by a fire (1823); the pope substituted for it, for the visits of the faithful, his own titular church, Santa Maria in Trastevere.^[56] At the end of the year, by the encyclical Charitate Christi (December 25, 1825), he extended the graces of the Jubilee to the whole world for 1826.^[57]

“Prevented by the difficulties of the Napoleonic era in 1800, the tradition of the Jubilee resumed in 1825 with Leo XII, only to be interrupted again in 1850 by the events of the Roman Republic and the temporary absence of Pius IX from the Vatican.” — From the official portal iubilaeum2025.va, “Jubilees in history”^[58]

This Jubilee of 1825 was thus the only ordinary Holy Year fully celebrated in the 19th century — that of 1850 was prevented by the exile of Pius IX, and that of 1875, proclaimed by Pius IX, was celebrated without the traditional solemnity.^[59] It manifested, in a time of widespread distrust, the persistent vitality of Catholic piety and the Christian people’s attachment to the successor of Peter. The details of the jubilee institution itself belong to a dedicated article; but it is to Leo XII that the credit belongs for having resurrected it after a quarter-century eclipse.

Leo XII attached decisive importance to education, which he sought to free from the spirit of the Enlightenment and place once again under the guidance of the Church.

The Bull Quod divina sapientia (1824)

By the bull Quod divina sapientia, dated 28 August 1824, the pope reorganized the entire educational system of the Papal States.^[60] Universities, schools, and curricula were placed under the authority of a Congregation of Studies; Latin, scholastic philosophy, and Catholic doctrine regained a central place; the supervision of exams and diplomas was centralized in Rome.^[61][62] This measure was consistent with his entire reign: to take firm control of the transmission of minds.

The Roman College Returned to the Jesuits

A highly symbolic gesture: as early as 1824, Leo XII restored the Roman College — the ancient Collegio Romano, future heart of the Gregorian University — to the Jesuits, from whom it had been taken by Clement XIV during the suppression of the order in 1773, and whom Pius VII had reinstated in 1814.^[63][64]

“The Roman College was returned to the effective hands of the Jesuits in 1824.” — According to The Catholic Encyclopedia, art. “Pope Leo XII”^[65]

By entrusting Roman higher education once again to the Society of Jesus, the pope relied on the Church’s most solid teaching order to rebuild the Catholic elite of the century. The details of the suppression and restoration of the Jesuits belong to a dedicated article; but Leo XII consolidated their educational work right in Rome.

Consistent with Pius VII’s fight against the Carbonari and Freemasonry, Leo XII struck in turn. By the apostolic constitution Quo graviora, dated 13 March 1826, he renewed and strengthened all previous condemnations of secret societies.^[66]

He explicitly confirmed the acts of his predecessors: the bull In eminenti of Clement XII (1738), the Providas of Benedict XIV (1751), and the Ecclesiam a Jesu Christo of Pius VII (13 September 1821) against the Carbonari.^[67] Leo XII saw in these not merely theological error, but a social and political danger: societies working “in darkness” to corrupt morals, weaken religion, and disturb public order, whose vague allegiance to a “Great Architect” precisely dissolved faith into the indifferentism he otherwise combated.^[68]

“Our predecessor Pius VII, of happy memory, in whose place We have been chosen, condemned under the gravest penalties the sect of the Carbonari, or with the passage of time by whatever other name it may be called according to the diversity of places, languages, and men.” — From the constitution Quo graviora, 13 March 1826^[69]

The pope reaffirmed that these prohibitions are still in force, that Catholics who join these societies incur excommunication, and he urged bishops and confessors to vigilance.^[70] The magisterial continuity here is remarkable: from one pope to another, the same doctrine is transmitted and strengthened.

As temporal sovereign of the Papal States, Leo XII applied his Restoration program without leniency. It is on this ground that his reputation suffered most.

The Dismissal of Consalvi

One of his first acts was to remove Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, the skilled Secretary of State of Pius VII, architect of the Concordat and the restoration of the States at the Congress of Vienna. Leo XII replaced him with the venerable but rigid Cardinal Giulio Maria della Somaglia.^[71] Consalvi, already ill, died a few months later, in January 1824. With him died the spirit of compromise that had saved the papacy under the Empire.

The Police, Morals, and Sumptuary Laws

The reign was marked by a nitpicking moral severity. The pope multiplied regulations on public life and strictly regulated dress.^[72] Well-intentioned, this moral policing stifled the city and bred deep resentment, even among the faithful.

The Jewish Ghetto Reinstated

By an edict of 1826, Leo XII reconfined the Jews of Rome to the ghetto and restricted their property rights, causing emigration and economic damage.^[73] This harsh measure, consistent with the reactionary spirit of the Restoration, illustrates the limits of a government that confused defense of the faith with the restoration of a bygone social order.

The Repression of Banditry

Leo XII also sought to restore order in the countryside, notably in the troubled Legations: the police firmness he deployed there — up to the death penalty used at Ravenna — did not suffice to calm minds and even emboldened revolutionaries.^[74]

On the international stage, the reactionary pope paradoxically proves capable of realism. Where doctrine never wavers, diplomacy knows how to adapt.

Concordats with Hanover and the Netherlands

To reorganize Churches disrupted by secularization, Leo XII concluded concordats with partly Protestant states: Hanover in 1824, then the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1827.^[75] These agreements established diocesan boundaries and guaranteed the Church a legal framework for operation, extending the method already tested under Pius VII.

Latin America: From Loyalty to Recognition

Faced with the independences in Latin America, the pope’s position evolved. In 1824, through the encyclical Etsi iam diu (24 September 1824), he first urged the clergy of Spanish America to remain faithful to King Ferdinand VII of Spain, out of concern for monarchical legitimacy.^[76][77] But reality prevailed: the new republics existed and their Churches lacked bishops. By 1827, Leo XII resolved to fill the sees in Spanish America and to recognize de facto the reorganization of dioceses, despite the claims of Madrid’s patronato real (the right of patronage by which the Spanish crown itself appointed the bishops of America).^[78][79] The pastoral interest of the faithful outweighed the political principle.

Catholics in England and Ireland

The pope also supported the emancipation of Catholics in Protestant countries, notably in Great Britain and Ireland, where millions of faithful lived under discriminatory laws.^[80][81] The Catholic Relief Act, which restored their civil rights, received the royal assent on 13 April 1829^[82], two months after Leo XII’s death: the pope did not live to see its fruition, but his support had contributed to it.

Leo XII is sometimes caricatured as a retrograde and cold pope. The reality is more subtle: behind the uncompromising ruler stood a man of sincere piety and authentic austerity.

Austerity and Love for the Poor

Personally, Leo XII led a poor and mortified life. Frugal and economical for himself, he was instead generous to the indigent and attentive to the plight of the sick and pilgrims.^[83] His rigor was not a mask: it began with himself. The pope who imposed strict discipline on Rome first applied it to himself, enduring illness with great patience, it is said.^[84]

A Noble Character, an Inflexibility Without Flexibility

This unbending uprightness also had its downside: entirely focused on defending the old order, he poorly discerned what the new world might contain of legitimate aspirations. The verdict of The Catholic Encyclopedia, quoted below, says the same thing in measured terms.

“He had a noble character, a passion for order and efficiency, but lacked understanding and sympathy for the temporal developments of his era.” — The Catholic Encyclopedia, art. “Pope Leo XII”^[85]

Leo XII thus illustrates the difficulty of distinguishing faithfulness to the faith — an absolute duty — from faithfulness to a form of society — a historical reality. He defended truth against indifferentism without faltering, but tied that defense to the restoration of a social order that his century rejected.

A Painful End (1829)

As he had predicted, his reign was short. Undermined by a longstanding internal ailment whose exact cause remains debated, Leo XII died in Rome on 10 February 1829, at the age of sixty-eight.^[86] His reign had become unpopular in Rome and in the Papal States^[87], and that unpopularity weighed on the legacy he bequeathed to his successors. A sad paradox for such a selfless pope.

The Tomb in Saint Peter’s

Initially buried provisionally, Leo XII received his final resting place in Saint Peter’s Basilica: his remains were transferred on 5 December 1830 near the altar of Saint Leo the Great, whose name he had taken.^[88] The choice is significant: the pope of the Restoration rests beside the great pope of Antiquity who also defended the unity of the faith against the perils of his time.

The Verdict of History

How to judge Leo XII? History remembers a pontiff who was honest, pious, and zealous, but whose governance was too rigid for his century. On the religious level, he restored clerical discipline, returned teaching to the Jesuits, condemned indifferentism and secret societies, and above all revived the Jubilee, offering the Church one of its great moments of popular fervor in the 19th century. On the political level, his intransigent reaction deepened the gulf between the papacy and liberal aspirations, preparing the crises that Pius VIII and Blessed Pius IX would face.

The Encyclopædia Britannica (art. “Leo XII”) summarizes this contrast between the two halves of the reign: after a policy that was at first repressive in the Papal States, Leo XII recognized the need for a certain moderation — as shown by the concordats concluded with Hanover (1824) and the Netherlands (1827).^[89]

His immediate successor, Cardinal Castiglioni, took the name Pius VIII in March 1829. Leo XII remains, in the long gallery of popes, the figure of a zeal entirely bent on restoration: a sincere man of God, whose most lasting work was, ultimately, not a condemnation but a grace offered — the Holy Year of 1825.

• Pope Pius VII (1742-1823) — his predecessor, the Benedictine monk who stood up to Napoleon and made him a cardinal.
• Pope Pius VIII — his immediate successor, elected in 1829, the moderate Castiglioni who was passed over at the 1823 conclave.
• Pope Clement XIV — the one who suppressed the Society of Jesus in 1773, whose restoration in Rome was consolidated by Leo XII.
• Pope Clement XII and Benedict XIV — the first major condemnations of Freemasonry, renewed by Leo XII through Quo graviora in 1826.
• Pope Gregory XVI — who continued, after Pius VIII, the uncompromising defense of the Church against liberalism.
• Blessed Pius IX — the pope of the thwarted Jubilee of 1850 and the great crises of the temporal power.
• The Society of Jesus — the teaching order to whom Leo XII returned the Roman College in 1824.