When Pope Leo XIV emerged onto the balcony overlooking St. Peter’s Square, I was moved by what I can only describe as his receptivity. His was a smiling, open-hearted face. He seemed humbled by the scene and grateful to receive the warmth and love of the people.
Then my phone started blowing up. A fellow Villanova Wildcat had just been elected pope!
Excited by an Augustinian bishop of Rome, friends began texting. An email thread of St. Augustine scholars chimed in on the news, musing about the shape of an Augustinian papacy.
And that’s the question I’ve been thinking about ever since: What might we expect from an Augustinian pope? I listened to Pope Leo’s first messages with Augustinian ears. In his first words from the balcony, and then in his homily at his first Mass, I heard abiding themes from the Doctor of Grace.
Already in his first “Urbi et Orbi” address, for example, one could hear Pope Leo’s vision for faith on the move. “So let us move forward, without fear,” he encouraged the flock, “together, hand in hand with God and with one another.” When Pope Leo described himself as “a son of Saint Augustine,” he pictured faith as a pilgrimage: “So may we all walk together towards that homeland that God has prepared for us.” Faith as “walking,” discipleship as a journey, the Christian life as a long pilgrimage—these are deeply Augustinian metaphors.
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With thanks to America and James K. A. Smith, where this article originally appeared.
