Earliest-born person captured on film
The Lord Jesus Christ built his Church on a ‘rock’:
You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church (Matthew 16).
Peter was the first pope. Francis is the 266th leader of the Catholic (Universal) Church.
How has the Church survived for so long?
The answer is two-fold:
Fidelity to the truth. Adaptability to change.
Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) is indisputably the first truly modern pope:
He is the ‘earliest-born person captured on film’ (go to YouTube).
Elected in 1878, he systematically modernised the Church:
Promoted St. Thomas Aquinas method of philosophical and theological thinking (1879)
Opened the Vatican Archives (1883)
Published first modern Social Teaching Document (1891)
Setup the Biblical Commission – restoring the Bible to Theology and Prayer (1902)
Approval of modern constitutional arrangements between Church and State.
Leo is a ‘faithful-evolutionary.’
Unlike his predecessor – Pope Pius IX (1846-1878), who was nicknamed ‘Pio No No’ because he was anti-everything modern – Leo XIII embraced modernity with faith, not fear:
Nothing is more useful than to look upon the world as it really is, and at the same time to seek Elsewhere (God) for the solace to its troubles (Rerum Novarum 18).
Amen.