Editing Pope Leo XII (section)

==Pontificate==
{{Infobox popestyles|
|image      = C o a Leon XII.svg
|dipstyle   = [[His Holiness]]
|offstyle   = Your Holiness
|relstyle   = Holy Father
|deathstyle = None
}}

===Papal election===
{{Main|Papal conclave, 1823}}
Pope Pius VII died in 1823 after yet another long pontificate that spanned over two decades. In the conclave of 1823, della Genga was the candidate of the [[zelanti]] faction and in spite of the active opposition of [[Kingdom of France|France]], he was elected as the new pope by the cardinals on 28 September 1823, taking the name of Leo XII.<ref name=EB1911/>

His election had been facilitated because he was thought to be close to death, but he unexpectedly rallied.<ref name=EB1911/> He had even remarked about his own health to the cardinals, saying that they would be electing "a dead man".<ref name=Miranda/> It was said in the conclave that he lifted his robes to show the cardinals a pair of swollen and ulcerated legs to deter them, but that made them even more eager to elect him.<ref name="Pickle Publishing">{{cite web|url=http://www.pickle-publishing.com/papers/triple-crown-leo-xii.htm|title=Pope Leo XII: Proceedings of the Conclave that led to his election.|publisher=Pickle Publishing|access-date=9 February 2015}}</ref> Before the conclave opened, the [[Kingdom of the Two Sicilies]] indicated that it objected to five candidates in the election which included della Genga. While della Genga did not receive a single vote in the first and second ballots, he received seven in the third and then four in the fifth. While it seemed that Cardinal Antonio Gabriele Severoli would prevail on 21 September since he had just below the needed amount, Cardinal [[Giuseppe Albani]] interposed the [[Jus exclusivae|veto]] on the behalf of the [[Austrian Empire]] against Severoli. While it was later indicated that the French court would not be amenable to the election of della Genga, Severoli's voting bloc decided to cast their votes for della Genga, seeing him receive 34 votes to become pope.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/SV1823.html|title=Sede Vacante 1823|publisher=|author=John Paul Adams|date=5 September 2015|accessdate=20 February 2022}}</ref>

Leo XII was 63 at the time of his election and frequently fell victim to infirmities. He was tall and thin with an ascetic look and a melancholic countenance.  At this time [[Vincent Strambi]] served as bishop for the remainder of the pontificate of [[Pope Pius VII]] before his successor Pope Leo XII accepted Strambi's resignation and summoned him to [[Rome]] as his advisor. But the sudden illness of the pope – which seemed to prove fatal – prompted Strambi to offer his own life to [[God]] so that the pope could live. Leo XII rallied to great surprise but Strambi died of a [[stroke]] within the week.<ref name=SEB>{{cite web|url=http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/36000|title=Saint Vincenzo Strambi|publisher=Santi e Beati|access-date=31 August 2017}}</ref>

So Leo XII fell ill after his coronation but after his recovery, he showed surprising endurance in carrying out his work. Leo XII devoted himself to his work and was simple in his mode of life. He had a passion for shooting birds and was rumored to have killed a peasant with whom he argued about sporting rights.<ref name="Pickle Publishing"/>

The cardinal [[protodeacon]] [[Fabrizio Ruffo]] [[Papal coronation|crowned]] him as pontiff on 5 October 1823.

===Foreign policy===
Pius VII's [[Cardinal Secretary of State]], [[Ercole Consalvi]], who had been della Genga's rival in the conclave, was immediately dismissed, and Pius' policies rejected.<ref>Francis A. Burkle-Young, ''Papal Elections in the Age of Transition, 1878–1922'', 2000:22ff.</ref> Leo XII's foreign policy, entrusted at first to the octogenarian [[Giulio Maria della Somaglia]] and then to the more able [[Tommaso Bernetti]], negotiated certain [[concordat]]s very advantageous to the papacy. Personally most frugal, Leo XII reduced taxes, made justice less costly, and was able to find money for certain public improvements, yet he left the Church's finances more confused than he had found them, and even the elaborate [[jubilee (Christian)|jubilee]] of 1825 did not really mend financial matters.<ref name=EB1911/>

With regard to the [[Spanish American wars of independence|Spanish American Wars of Independence]], he initially displayed a cautious stance of neutrality between the [[Spanish Empire]] and the Spanish American Republics, not recognizing them diplomatically, but allowing the priestly Ordination of clergy sympathetic to the independence movements, seeking to avoid explicit declarations against the independentists for fear of [[Anti-clericalism|anti-clerical]] policies by the [[Libertadores|Liberadores]] in response, as well as an abuse of the [[patronato real]] in [[Spain]] to pressure the [[Pope]] to increase his hostility. But after receiving representatives of the Spanish Court (supported in turn by the [[Holy Alliance]]) and also envoys from [[Gran Colombia]] proposing a [[Concordat]], he issued opinions against the latter in order to ''restore tranquility and order to his subjects in those domains'', influencing the rejection of the [[Holy See]] to the patriotic Armies that they affirm [[Liberalism|liberal]] ideologies and the [[Modernism in the Catholic Church|Modernist errors]] of the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] (perceived by the Church as heresies) contrary to [[natural law]] and the [[Thomism|Thomistic]] Conception of Politics (citing as an example its application in the [[Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution|Dechristianization of France]] during the [[French Revolution]]), as well as considering that the cause of the socio-political disorder in Latin America came from the insurgents with their rebellions against the Legitimate authority and seeking to force the practice of the voluntaristic doctrines of the Social Contract, a work condemned in the Index librorum prohibitorum, which prevented a pacification of the continent in a situation of anarchy since the [[Napoleonic invasion of Iberia|Napoleonic invasion]] (This criticism, despite popular rumors, was not influenced by papal sympathies for the traditional Monarchy or any pressure from the [[Congress of Verona]]). It was thus that he proclaimed the encyclical [[Etsi Liam Diu]], in continuity with the previous pro-[[Royalist (Spanish American independence)|royalist]] encyclical, [[Etsi longissimo terrarum]], in which he exhorted the Hispanic American clergy ''"to advise and insist among the faithful to obedience and submission to the legitimate sovereign and mother country,"'' that is, to maintain the Pact with the [[Hispanic Monarchy (political entity)|Hispanic Monarchy]] intact by inspiring the common population to be faithful vassals and to abjure the "new ideas" of the Hispanic American Enlightenment and its [[Secularism]] (especially the threat that nation-states would claim to be the new socio-political rector of the destinies of society, to the detriment of the spiritual supremacy of the Church according to [[Doctrine of the two swords|political Augustinianism]]), as well as to achieve a Reconciliation between Hispanic Americans involved in a fratricidal civil war that threatened to fragment the political ties of [[Hispanidad|Hispanicity]]. However, due to logistical problems, the document was not delivered to the Spanish Americans until after the [[Battle of Ayacucho]] (the wars of independence having already ended in royalist defeat) and the [[Creole nationalism|Creole and liberal elites]], once they learned of its existence, took the opportunity to accuse the document of being a Spanish forgery (a historiographical controversy that would be resolved with the release of the [[Vatican Apostolic Archive|Vatican Archives]] by [[Pope Leo XIII|Leo XIII]] at the end of the century, revealing the original copy).<ref>{{cite journal|access-date=2025-05-13 |last=Delgado |date=1961-02-17 |first=Luis Martínez |issn=2590-6275 |language=es |number=02 |pages=99–104 |periodical=Boletín Cultural y Bibliográfico |title=Apuntes sobre la encíclica del Pontífice León XII relativa a la independencia de las colonias americanas |url=https://publicaciones.banrepcultural.org/index.php/boletin_cultural/article/view/6309/6522 |volume=4}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref><ref>{{cite journal|access-date=2025-05-13 |last=S |date=1990-12-14 |doi=10.22201/iih.24485004e.1990.013.68869 |first=Héctor C. Hernández |issn=2448-5004 |language=es |number=13 |periodical=Estudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea de México |title=México y la encíclica Etsi iam diu de León XII |url=https://moderna.historicas.unam.mx/index.php/ehm/article/view/68869/68876 |volume=13|doi-access=free }}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref><ref>{{cite web|access-date=2025-05-13 |title=La Desconocida Enciclica del Vaticano contra las Independencias Américanas – Hispanismo Chile |url=https://hispanismo.cl/2024/07/17/la-desconocida-enciclica-del-vaticano-contra-las-independencias-americanas/ |website=hispanismo.cl}}<!-- auto-translated from Spanish by Module:CS1 translator --></ref>

[[Image:Schedrin NewRome.jpg|thumb|left|The Tiber with [[Castel Sant'Angelo]], [[Ponte Sant'Angelo]] and St. Peter in the time of Leo XII, by [[Sylvester Shchedrin|Silvestr Feodosievich Shchedrin]]]]

===Domestic policy===
Leo XII's domestic policy was one of extreme conservatism: "He was determined to change the condition of society, bringing it back to the utmost of his power to the old usages and ordinances, which he deemed to be admirable; and he pursued that object with never flagging zeal."<ref>[[Luigi Carlo Farini]], ''Lo stato Romano, dell'anno 1815 a 1850'', (Turin, 1850) vol. I, p. 17, quoted by Thomas Adolphus Trollope, ''The Story of the Life of Pius the Ninth'' vol. I (1877:39ff)</ref> He condemned the [[Bible societies]], and under [[Jesuit]] influence reorganised the educational system,<ref name=EB1911/> placing it entirely under priestly control through his bull ''[[Quod divina sapientia]]'' and requiring that all secondary instruction be carried out in Latin, as he required of all court proceedings, also now entirely in ecclesiastical hands. All charitable institutions in the Papal States were put under direct supervision.

Laws such as that forbidding Jews to own property and allowing them only the shortest possible time in which to sell what they owned, and that requiring all Roman residents to listen to Catholic catechism commentary, led many of Rome's Jews to emigrate, to [[Trieste]], [[Lombardy]] and [[Grand Duchy of Tuscany|Tuscany]].<ref>Farini, ''eo. loc.''</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pickle-publishing.com/papers/triple-crown-leo-xii.htm |title=Valérie Pirie, ''The Triple Crown: An Account of the Papal Conclaves'' |publisher=Pickle-publishing.com |access-date=23 June 2013}}</ref>
[[File: Busto di Leone XII.jpg|thumb|right|Bust of Pope Leo XII, {{circa|1820s}}]]
"The results of his method of governing his states soon showed themselves in insurrections, conspiracies, assassinations and rebellion, especially in Umbria, the Marches and Romagna; the violent repression of which, by a system of espionage, secret denunciation, and wholesale application of the gibbet and the galleys, left behind it to those who were to come afterwards a very terrible, rankling and long-enduring debt of party hatreds, of political and social demoralisation, and{{snd}}worst of all{{snd}}a contempt for and enmity to the law, as such."<ref>Trollope, p. 41.</ref> In a regime that saw the division of the population into [[Carbonari]] and [[Sanfedisti]], he hunted down the Carbonari and the [[freemasonry|Freemasons]]<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|wstitle=Leo (popes)/Leo XII|volume=16|inline=1}}</ref> with their liberal sympathisers.

Leo XII made himself unpopular with the people due to the fact that he constrained them to endless rules that concerned private life and public affairs. He decreed that a dressmaker who sold low or transparent dresses would incur ipso facto [[excommunication]]. The pope also denied the Jews the right to possess material possessions and allowed them the shortest time to sell their belongings. He revived the regulations of the Middle Ages in regard to segregation and marks for identification.<ref name="Pickle Publishing"/>

While often considered an archconservative Leo XII held a high opinion of the [[liberal Catholicism|liberal Catholic]] priest [[Lamennais]] having a portrait of him hung in his private chambers. When the latter visited Rome in 1824 Leo offered him a Vatican apartment and in 1828 a cardinalate. According to Cardinal [[Nicholas Wiseman]] before the full [[Papal consistory|consistory]] he said that Lamennais was " a distinguished writer, whose works had not only rendered eminent services to religion, but rejoiced and astonished Europe." However some believe that the quote was actually about the historian [[John Lingard]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kitchin |first=Rev. William P.H. |date=1922 |title=The Story of Lamennais|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25011855 |journal= Catholic Historical Review |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=202–203|jstor=25011855 }}</ref>

Leo XII had a fascination with archeology. When [[Jean-François Champollion]] [[Decipherment|deciphered]] the [[Egyptian hieroglyphs]], Leo XII invited him to Rome to study its obelisks. Leo XII later printed and engraved Champollion's work at his personal expense. Champollion later wrote to Cardinal Wiseman that "It is a
real service which His Holiness renders to science, and I shall be happy if you will be good enough to place at his feet the homage of my profound acknowledgment.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Zahm |first=Rev. J. A. |date=1893 |title=Christian Faith and Scientific Freedom|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/25103199. |journal= The North American Review|volume=157 |issue=442 |page=319|jstor=25103199 }}</ref>

===Vaccination controversy===
[[File:Pope Leo XII.PNG|thumb|Portrait of Pope Leo XII.]]
According to some contemporary authors such as G. S. Godkin, Leo XII was also said to have prohibited [[vaccination]].<ref>Godkin, G. S. (1880). Life of Victor Emmanuel II. Macmillan</ref> More recent scholarship has been unable to find any ban or any suggestion of a ban by Leo XII and his administration. Donald J. Keefe<ref>Donald J. Keefe, "Tracking the footnote", [http://www.catholicscholars.org/PDFFiles/v9n4sep1986.pdf Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Newsletter, Volume 9, Number 4, September 1986] pp. 6–7.</ref> traced a quote by Leo XII which strongly condemned vaccination to "an unverified citation" by Dr. Pierre Simon in ''Histoire et philosophie du contrôle des naissances''. The response of the Papacy to the arrival of vaccination in Italy has been documented in ''Pratique de la vaccination antivariolique dans les provinces de l’État pontifical au 19ème siècle'', an article written by [[Yves-Marie Bercé]] and Jean-Claude Otteni for Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.rhe.eu.com/material/Pagesdeberce.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=3 February 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150203052417/http://www.rhe.eu.com/material/Pagesdeberce.pdf |archive-date=3 February 2015  }}</ref> According to Bercé and Otteni, the biographers and contemporaries of Leo XII do not mention any interdict. The authors credit the origin of the mythical vaccination ban of Leo XII to the personality of Cardinal della Genga when he became pope in 1823. His intransigence and piety alienated liberal opinion very quickly. His austere spirituality made him the target of criticisms and mocking remarks. English travelers visiting the peninsula and many of the diplomats established in Rome remarked on the severity of the pontiff.

The absence of a prohibition is evidenced by the fact that in 1828 the Medical-Surgical Society of Bologna was able to implement a vaccination campaign.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://badigit.comune.bologna.it/books/sol/103243_INV.pdf|title=Risultamenti ottenuti dalla Società medico-chirurgica di Bologna per la inoculazione del vaccino praticata nell'anno 1828|last=Argelati|first=Giacomo|year=1829|location=Bologna|trans-title=Results obtained by the Medical-Surgical Society of Bologna on the inoculation of the vaccine}}</ref>

===Activities===
====Beatifications and canonizations====
Leo XII [[Beatification|beatified]] a number of individuals in his pontificate, which totaled at 15. He beatified [[Angelina di Marsciano]] and [[Bernardo Scammacca]] (8 March 1825), [[Hippolytus Galantini]] (29 June 1825), [[Angelus of Gualdo Tadino]] (3 August 1825), and [[Luca Antonio Falcone|Angelus of Acri]] (18 December 1825). He also beatified in 1825 Julian of Saint Augustine,<ref>''[http://www.wdl.org/en/item/13764/ Faithful and True Translation of a Brief Memoir of the Life and Miracles of the Saintly Brother Julian of Alcala]'', 1610. World Digital Library.</ref> [[Alphonsus Rodriguez]] and [[Jakob Griesinger]]. He beatified [[Imelda Lambertini]] (20 December 1826) and also confirmed the cultus of [[Jordan of Saxony]] in 1826. He also beatified [[Yolanda of Poland]] and [[Maddalena Panattieri]] on 26 September 1827, as well as [[Giovanna Soderini]] (1827) and [[Elena Duglioli]] and [[Juana de Aza]] (the mother of [[Saint Dominic]]) in 1828.

Leo XII also created [[Peter Damian]] a [[Doctor of the Church]] on 27 September 1828 in addition to the formal canonization he presided over.

====Saint Vincenzo Strambi====
He collaborated with [[Vincent Strambi]] (future saint){{snd}}who served as his advisor. When he was on the brink of death in 1825, Strambi offered himself to God for the survival of the pope. The pope rallied from his ailment, but Strambi died.

====Religious congregations====
The pope also approved the [[Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate]] on 17 February 1826 when he gave the congregation official recognition.

====Jubilee====
[[File:Leone XII apre la porta santa della basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano.jpg|thumb|left|Leo XII opens the holy door to mark the beginning of the Jubilee in 1825.]]
Leo XII celebrated the jubilee in 1825 in an event that saw more than half a million pilgrims travel to Rome to participate in the solemnities. To mark the event, Leo XII issued the encyclical ''Quod hoc ineunte'' on 24 May 1825 that proclaimed the jubilee.

====Consistories====
{{main|Cardinals created by Leo XII}}
He held 8 [[Papal consistory|consistories]] in which he elevated 25 new cardinals into the cardinalate. This included Cardinal Bartolomeo Alberto Cappellari – the future [[Pope Gregory XVI]] – on 13 March 1826. In addition, Leo XII nominated three cardinals whom he reserved "''[[in pectore]]''" but later revealed.

For the December 1824 allocations, Leo XII considered elevating [[Félicité de La Mennais]] despite knowing about his crude character and extreme social and moral positions. Nevertheless, the nomination never occurred, however, other sources allege that he declined the pope's invitation. For the October 1826 allocation, Leo XII had nominated one cardinal ''in pectore'' whom he later revealed in 1828, however, several subsequent sources indicate that the renowned English historian [[John Lingard]] was also created a cardinal ''in pectore'' and simply never announced. In the 1828 consistory, the [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Osimo and Cingoli|Bishop of Osimo e Cingoli]] Timoteo Maria Ascensi was to be made a cardinal but died nine days before the consistory occurred.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://cardinals.fiu.edu/consistories-xix.htm#LeoXII|title=Leo XII (1823-1829)|publisher=The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church|date=|author=Salvador Miranda|accessdate=20 February 2022}}</ref>