Ahh, the Pope known as the Light in the Heavens
I’ve read about him and I’ve read a lot of his many, many works and to me he seems worthy. St. Therese spoke of sensing his holiness when she had her audience with him. I think we may see something in the more distant future.
One aspect of canonization is that the person has to have what’s known as a “cult”–that is there has to already be veneration and devotion among the faithful. Excluding the early Church and the very recent Church, this has been difficult for a Pope since he was pretty detached from the faithful during those times in between.
In the early Church, the Pope was more involved in his local bishopric of Rome and the local faithful there would develop such a cult. In modern times, with TV and the internet, it is again likely for a Pope to have a cult. In the past, only bishops for the most part read papal encyclicals and whatnot. Now, with the internet, they are much more available to the faithful (recent popes have even addressed their encyclicals to the faithful in addition to the bishops). The writings of Leo XIII are really a treasure of wisdom (and he is the father of Catholic social teaching) so I think we may see his cause opened at some point down the road.
The only recent Pope to have been canonized is Pius X, with Pius IX and John XXIII being beatified. John XXIII’s cult benefited from modern mass communication and also his high profile move of calling an ecumenical council. Pius IX similarly benefited from calling such a council, as well as defining an important Marian dogma, and his clashes with liberal revolutionaries who persecuted he and the Church in Rome.
Pius X advocated more frequent communion and lowered the age for first communion–this doesn’t sound like too big of a deal, but for the faithful of the time, it was huge (the faithful used to need permission from their confessor to receive frequent communion). This alone would have given him a strong cult, not to mention other aspects of his venerable character.
Before them, we have to go back to the 1600s to Innocent XI, who was beatified by Pius XII hundreds of years later. That basically happened because while moving his tomb in the 20th century, they by chance discovered his body to be incorrupt.
Like I said before, I think we will see in the future more concerning the cause of Pope Leo XIII. Then again, he may go down as one of the non-canonized greats like Innocent III (who Leo XIII venerated, even moving his tomb to a more prominent place).
