Тhе canonization of saints during the pontificate of Leo XIII as the way of manifesting the social-political doctrine of the roman catholic church

The article provides a brief overview of the features of Catholic hagiology and the process of canonization of Western saints in the last quarter of the 19th - early 20th centuries, during the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), which was marked by the active formation of the sociopolitical doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. It also talks about the special role of the Jesuit order in this process and about the personal contribution of this pontiff to changing the nature of canonizations in the analyzed time period. This side of the issue is practically not studied by Russian Orthodox theology and has not been raised in Russian theological literature in this aspect before, despite the interest shown in the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church in recent times. Pope Leo XIII, giving preference to the canonizations of saints of a socially active nature, adapted the Roman Catholic Church to the new realities of a liberal society and the bourgeois-capitalist system of the world order, bringing aristocratic Catholicism closer to the socially unprotected sections of the population. Largely due to such tactics of the Western Church, by now it is social missionary activity that is perhaps the main way of propagating Catholicism, especially in territories perceived as missionary.