Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly. Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.

Pope Leo XIII (Italian: Leone XIII), born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, reigned as Pope from 20 February 1878 to his death in 1903. He was the oldest pope (reigning until the age of 93), and had the third longest pontificate, behind that of Pope Pius IX (his immediate predecessor) and John Paul II. He was the most recent pontiff to date to take the pontifical name of "Leo" upon being elected to the pontificate until 2025. He is well known for his intellectualism, the development of social teachings with his famous papal encyclical [Book: Rerum novarum] and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. He influenced Roman Catholic Mariology and promoted both the rosary and the scapular. Leo XIII issued a record of eleven Papal encyclicals on the rosary earning him the title as the "Rosary Pope". In addition, he approved two new Marian scapulars and was the first pope to fully embrace the concept of Mary as Mediatrix. He was the first pope to never have held any control over the Papal States, after they were dissolved by 1870. He was briefly buried in the grottos of Saint Peter's Basilica before his remains were later transferred to the Basilica of Saint John Lateran.