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In a time marked by profound ecclesial and cultural transformations, Providence has given the Church two Popes, different in formation and personal history, yet united by the same spiritual root: Saint Augustine. Joseph Ratzinger, who became Benedict XVI, and Robert Francis Prevost, now Leo XIV, share a deep love for the Bishop of Hippo. The former studied and quoted him tirelessly; the latter is his spiritual and religious son, having professed vows in the Augustinian Order. In both, Augustinian spirituality is the living source of a theological and pastoral thought that highlights three great primacies: God, Jesus Christ, and Grace.
Benedict XVI and Saint Augustine: the theologian of loving truth
Joseph Ratzinger always recognised in Saint Augustine not only a thinker of exceptional stature, but his great inner master. Already as a young professor, his first university lecture was devoted to the relationship between faith and reason in Augustine’s thought, a theme he would continue to deepen throughout his life. His admiration was not merely academic, but a true spiritual affinity: for Benedict XVI, Augustine is the man who seeks God with all his being, who recognises in charity the authentic face of truth, and in grace discovers the only foundation of salvation. In Augustinian spirituality, Ratzinger rediscovered the very essence of the Gospel: God is the origin, the centre, and the end of all things. It is not man, with his projects or structures, who founds the Church, but God who loves first and calls. From this primacy of God flows the primacy of Christ, the incarnate Logos, light of truth, who saves not through human merit, but through grace.
Emblematic of this theological attitude is the ancient legend, rich in spiritual meaning, in which Augustine, while meditating on the Trinity, saw a child on the beach trying to pour the sea into a small hole with a shell. When the saint pointed out the futility of the gesture, the child—before vanishing—replied: “And you, how can you think to comprehend the infinite mystery of God with your finite mind?” This symbolic scene illustrates the necessary humility of theology, which does not presume to contain God within the bounds of reason, but opens in wonder to His transcendence. It is no coincidence that Benedict XVI chose to insert a shell in the most noble part of his papal coat of arms: a discreet yet powerful sign of the awareness that God is not possessed, but contemplated, loved, and adored. And that every true knowledge of Him passes through the recognition of one’s own smallness.
This spiritual fidelity of Benedict to Augustine has deep roots. His doctoral thesis, defended under the guidance of theologian Gottlieb Söhngen, was entitled Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche — “People and house of God in the Church’s doctrine according to Saint Augustine”. Even then, a profound harmony emerged between Ratzinger’s intelligence and Augustine’s theological insight. Moreover, during his pontificate, Benedict XVIrepeatedly presented the Bishop of Hippo as a guide and travelling companion: in his speeches, general audiences, and moments of prayer, both public and private, Augustine was always present, as a living figure, a contemporary interlocutor, capable of speaking to the hearts of the people of our time.
On several occasions, Benedict XVI dedicated entire catecheses to him: consider his talks in 2007 in Pavia, where he was welcomed and accompanied by the Prior General Fr Robert Francis Prevost (now Leo XIV), the audiences of January and February 2008, or the vibrant appeal he made to young people at World Youth Day in Sydney, where he invited them to let Augustine guide them in encountering true love. Also memorable is the expression used in 2010 at Castel Gandolfo, when he described Augustine as his “travelling companion”, an image that captures the spiritual, intellectual, and human bond with the great Father of the Church. And it is this very spirit, this living and vital relationship with Augustine, that Benedict XVI sought to pass on to the new generations. As he himself said in one of the 2008 audiences: “When I read the writings of Saint Augustine, I do not get the impression that he is a man who died about 1,600 years ago, but I feel he is a man of today: a friend, a contemporary who speaks to me, who speaks to us.” It is this living and current Augustine who teaches us to raise our eyes to Christ, the only true Way, Truth, and Life — the same Christ that Pope Leo XIV yesterday pointed to as “always at the centre of my faith”.
Leo XIV: a Pope nourished by the heart of Augustine
The spiritual journey of Pope Leo XIV is also deeply rooted in the living and profound experience of Saint Augustine. First as a religious and then as Prior General of the Augustinian Order, Robert Prevost matured a spirituality marked by an unceasing search for truth, authentic community life, and charity lived in the light of faith. His preaching, as well as his gestures, reveal a soul deeply nourished by the thought and witness of the African saint.
In his first four addresses as Successor of Peter, Leo XIV has already often returned to the central themes of the Augustinian heart: the need to start from God and not from oneself, the centrality of prayer, fidelity to discernment, the primacy of grace and mercy. His magisterium does not aim to build something new, but to let the most authentic roots of faith blossom anew in the Church. Already in his first homily as Pope, celebrated in the Sistine Chapel with the cardinals, Leo XIV clearly indicated the direction of his service: “Disappear so that Christ may remain, become small so that He may be known and glorified […], spend oneself fully so that no one lacks the opportunity to know and love Him.” Words that echo Augustine’s noli foras ire. In his first urbi et orbi blessing, just after his election, Leo XIV revealed the inner spiritual fabric that moves him, deeply inspired by Augustine: “I am a son of Saint Augustine, an Augustinian, who said: ‘With you I am a Christian, for you I am a bishop.’ In this sense, we can all walk together toward that homeland which God has prepared for us.” With this quote, he did not merely honour his founder, but indicated the key with which he intends to live and guide the Church: in the awareness that episcopal ministry is a demanding service, but one deeply rooted in communion, fraternity, and grace. Saint Augustine, in fact, described the bishop as a man called to bear the burden of others, while still being himself a redeemed one: “For you I am a bishop, with you I am a Christian. That name is a sign of the office received, this of grace; that is a danger, this salvation.” Pope Leo XIV stands in this tradition, showing himself to be a bishop-shepherd who does not dominate, but loves; who does not command, but serves; who does not isolate himself, but walks with others. Even the tone of his blessing — humble, fraternal, smiling and encouraging — reflects a vision of the Church as the People of God who support each other, in which the Bishop of Rome is the first to ask for the prayers and charity of all: clergy and laity. Today, from the Loggia of Blessings, he asked for prayers for priestly and consecrated vocations, “which the Church needs so much,” and invited young people not to be afraid: “Accept the invitation of the Church and of Christ the Lord.” Thus, the Augustinian heart of the new Pope clearly emerges in the central passages of his message: the centrality of Christ, the primacy of grace, the call to build bridges and to seek the “disarming and disarmed” peace of the Risen One, walking hand in hand, as brothers, without fear, because we are carried by God.
In his speech, Leo XIV recalled the peace of the Risen One as a disarming and disarmed gift, which can only be born of God, “who loves us all unconditionally”. And he invited everyone not to be afraid, to walk “hand in hand with God and with each other”, to build bridges, dialogue, and encounter, in an ecclesial vision that tastes of Augustine’s Confessions: restless until it rests in God, yet also deeply oriented towards communion. “Humanity needs Him as the bridge to be reached by God and His love,” he said. And again: “Help us, and then one another, to build bridges, with dialogue, with encounter, uniting as one people always in peace.” In his first address to the world, Leo XIVthus outlined an Augustinian vision of the Church: pilgrim, restless, communal, guided by grace and oriented towards peace. He spoke of the Church as a “field entrusted to us to care for and cultivate, to nourish with the Sacraments of salvation and to enrich with the seed of the Word”, and reminded us that “the world needs the light of Christ”. All this — the centrality of God, the priority of grace, daily conversion, peace as a gift of the Risen One, the Church as a people on the way — are themes that flow directly from Augustinian spirituality. In Leo XIV, that source continues to flow clearly: not as erudition, but as lived, incarnate spiritual life.
Christ is for Augustine the centre of history, the Redeemer, the inner Teacher. Leo XIV told the cardinals: “There is also the other possible answer to Jesus’ question: that of the common people. For them, the Nazarene is not a ‘charlatan’: He is a righteous man, one who has courage, who speaks well and says the right things, like other great prophets in the history of Israel. That is why they follow Him, at least as long as they can do so without too much risk or inconvenience. But they consider Him only a man, and therefore, in the moment of danger, during the Passion, they too abandon Him and walk away, disappointed. […] Even today, there are contexts in which Jesus, though appreciated as a man, is reduced merely to a kind of charismatic leader or superman, and this happens not only among non-believers, but also among many baptised, who thus end up living, at this level, in a practical atheism.” The Pope speaks to us of Christ, alive, who calls to conversion and consoles in trials.
Between Benedict XVI and Leo XIV, a profound spiritual continuity is evident, with Saint Augustine at its core. It is not a matter of similarity in style or language — Benedict was German, Leo is American — but of an essential understanding of what truly matters: God, Jesus Christ, grace. In an age where the roots of faith risk being lost, these two Pontiffs indicate the way to rediscover the soul of Christianity. It is not a new way: it is as ancient as the Church, and as alive as the burning heart of Augustine.
Marco Felipe Perfetti
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