The ‘Son of Saint Augustine’ who became Pope

By Tiziana Campisi

“I am a son of Saint Augustine, an Augustinian.”

That’s how Pope Leo XIV introduced himself to the world upon his election on May 8, 2025, from the Loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica.  Robert Francis Prevost is a religious of the Order of Saint Augustine. He has belonged to it since September 2, 1978, the day he first professed vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. St Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, has marked every step of his journey since.

This was already evident in the first words he spoke a year ago, shortly after being elected Pope: “With you I am a Christian, and for you a bishop.” This quotation from his “mentor” (Sermon 340) expresses both his sense of belonging to the community of believers, equal to all others, and his awareness of the responsibility of being a shepherd.

“In this sense, we can all walk together toward that homeland God has prepared for us,” the Pope has urged, encouraging us to “seek together how to be a missionary Church, a Church that builds bridges, dialogue, always open to welcoming … everyone who needs our charity, our presence, dialogue, and love.” This phrase summarizes Augustine’s three decades of episcopal ministry, in which he devoted himself to the faithful, fought heresy, engaged in dialogue with everyone, and cared for the poor and needy.

The Pope with two Augustinian brothers

The Augustinian Family

Leo XIV is a deeply Augustinian Pope who, drawing on the experience and teaching of the Bishop of Hippo, fully lives the charism of his religious family through the search for God, the desire to imitate Christ, fraternity, and service to the Church.

He remains very attached to the Augustinians, so much so that he has not renounced moments of fellowship with his fellow Augustinians. Among Augustinians, the sense of community is strong, and sharing is of fundamental importance.

Just two days after his election to the papal throne, Leo XIV went to the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano, just outside Rome, entrusted for centuries to the pastoral care of the Augustinians.

It was Mary—whose maternal presence accompanied him throughout his life “with her wisdom and the example of her love for the Son, who is always the center of my faith, the way, the truth, and the life,” as he wrote in the shrine’s guest book—that the Pope asked to accompany him in his “new mission.”

Pope Leo at the Sanctuary of Genazzano   (@Vatican Media)

The desire for unity

From the very beginning, Augustine-inspired themes have recurred in the Pope’s homilies and speeches: interiority, Christ as the heart of the Church’s proclamation, friendship, dialogue, and unity. This unity is also expressed through the motto on his papal coat of arms—In Illo uno unum (“In the One Christ we are one”), taken from a sermon by the Bishop of Hippo on Psalm 127.

Another Augustinian mark appears in his papal emblem: the heart burning with the arrow of the Word.

The Pope in Cameroon in front of a sculpture depicting St. Augustine   (@Vatican Media)

Building bridges with Saint Augustine

Following in the footsteps of Saint Augustine, Leo XIV made a pastoral journey to Algeria from April 13 to 15 of this year, in the conviction that this Father of the Church “is still a very important figure today as his writings, teachings, spirituality, invitation to search for God and for the truth is something that is very much needed today,” as he told journalists during the flight from Algiers to Yaoundé. He added that Augustine’s vision offers inspiration “to seek unity among all peoples and a respect for all peoples in spite of differences.”

And in just over a month there will be another tribute to Saint Augustine, this time in Pavia, where his relics are kept. There, on June 20, the Augustinian Pontiff will symbolically unite the two shores of the Mediterranean, linking them through that bridge of dialogue begun in Algerian soil—the land of Augustine.