section_path: Papacy (1878–1903)/Pontificate
section_name: Pontificate
paragraph_text: Pontificate
  
  As soon as he was elected to the papacy, Leo XIII worked to encourage understanding between the church and the modern world. When he firmly reasserted the scholastic doctrine that science and religion coexist, he required the study of Thomas Aquinas and opened the Vatican Secret Archives to qualified researchers, among whom was the noted historian of the Papacy Ludwig von Pastor. He also refounded the Vatican Observatory "so that everyone might see clearly that the Church and her Pastors are not opposed to true and solid science, whether human or divine, but that they embrace it, encourage it, and promote it with the fullest possible devotion."
  
  Leo XIII brought normality back to the Catholic Church after the tumultuous years of Pius IX. Leo's intellectual and diplomatic skills helped regain much of the prestige lost with the fall of the Papal States. He tried to reconcile the church with the working class, particularly by dealing with the social changes that were sweeping Europe. The new economic order had resulted in the growth of an impoverished working class who had increasing anticlerical and socialist sympathies. Leo helped reverse that trend.
  
  Although Leo XIII was no radical in either theology or politics, his papacy moved the Catholic Church back to the mainstream of European life. Considered a great diplomat, he managed to improve relations with Russia, Germany, France, Britain and other countries.
  
  Pope Leo XIII was able to reach several agreements in 1896 that resulted in better conditions for the faithful and additional appointments of bishops. During the fifth cholera pandemic in 1891, he ordered the construction of a hospice inside the Vatican. That building would be torn down in 1996 to make way for construction of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.
  
  Leo was a drinker of the cocaine -infused wine tonic Vin Mariani, a precursor drink to Coca-Cola. He awarded a Vatican gold medal to the wine's creator, Angelo Mariani, and also appeared on a poster endorsing it. Leo XIII was a semi-vegetarian. In 1903, he attributed his longevity to the sparing use of meat and the consumption of eggs, milk and vegetables.
  
  His favourite poets were Virgil and Dante.
  
  As soon as he was elected to the papacy, Leo XIII worked to encourage understanding between the church and the modern world. When he firmly reasserted the scholastic doctrine that science and religion coexist, he required the study of Thomas Aquinas and opened the Vatican Secret Archives to qualified researchers, among whom was the noted historian of the Papacy Ludwig von Pastor. He also refounded the Vatican Observatory "so that everyone might see clearly that the Church and her Pastors are not opposed to true and solid science, whether human or divine, but that they embrace it, encourage it, and promote it with the fullest possible devotion."
  
  Leo XIII brought normality back to the Catholic Church after the tumultuous years of Pius IX. Leo's intellectual and diplomatic skills helped regain much of the prestige lost with the fall of the Papal States. He tried to reconcile the church with the working class, particularly by dealing with the social changes that were sweeping Europe. The new economic order had resulted in the growth of an impoverished working class who had increasing anticlerical and socialist sympathies. Leo helped reverse that trend.
  
  Although Leo XIII was no radical in either theology or politics, his papacy moved the Catholic Church back to the mainstream of European life. Considered a great diplomat, he managed to improve relations with Russia, Germany, France, Britain and other countries.
  
  Pope Leo XIII was able to reach several agreements in 1896 that resulted in better conditions for the faithful and additional appointments of bishops. During the fifth cholera pandemic in 1891, he ordered the construction of a hospice inside the Vatican. That building would be torn down in 1996 to make way for construction of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.
  
  Leo was a drinker of the cocaine -infused wine tonic Vin Mariani, a precursor drink to Coca-Cola. He awarded a Vatican gold medal to the wine's creator, Angelo Mariani, and also appeared on a poster endorsing it. Leo XIII was a semi-vegetarian. In 1903, he attributed his longevity to the sparing use of meat and the consumption of eggs, milk and vegetables.
  
  His favourite poets were Virgil and Dante.