Pope Leo XIV is an experienced pastor, foreign missionary and Vatican official. All of these diverse experiences, skills and talents inform his new responsibilities as the successor of St. Peter, the chief teacher and pastor of the Universal Church.
But Pope Leo is also an Augustinian, and the influence of St. Augustine can be seen in everything our new pope says and does.
St. Augustine’s most famous work, “Confessions,” describes the interior, spiritual journey that he undertook in his search for God. “The City of God,” on the other hand, describes how the Christian worldview, which is centered on God’s will, differs fundamentally from the secular worldview, whose exclusive focus is on human desires.
St. Augustine taught that within human history two “cities” are intertwined: the City of Man and the City of God.
“These signify spiritual realities — two orientations of the human heart and, therefore, of human civilization. The City of Man, built on pride and love of oneself, is marked by the pursuit of power, prestige and pleasure; the City of God, built on love of God unto selflessness, is characterized by justice, charity and humility.”
This was the situation in Augustine’s time, towards the end (the “decline and fall”) of the great Roman empire. Is it not also our situation in the second decade of the third millennium after Christ?
Ours is also a chaotic and dangerous time — illustrated by the horrific shooting at Annunciation School and Church in Minneapolis, where two people died and 17 were injured, in August. Since then, we have continued to witness political violence, random shootings and an endless series of murders in city streets.
At the time of the 80th anniversary of the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, the Holy Father expressed the hope that the world today — plagued by intense divisions and deadly violence here at home, in Ukraine, in the Holy Land and in many other regions of the world — will replace its false sense of security “based on the threat of mutual destruction” with justice, open dialogue and trust in fraternity.
The world in St. Augustine’s time was not threatened by weapons of mass destruction, but the devastating effects of selfishness and sin, which transformed the Roman empire into a culture of death, were clearly evident to Augustine and to all who sought to live in a social order characterized by genuine justice, charity and peace.
What kind of world do we want to live in, the Holy Father asks? And what must we do to bring about the City of God here and now?
As Pope Leo says, “The future of human flourishing depends on which ‘love’ we choose to organize our society around — a selfish love, the love of self or the love of God and neighbor.”
Dan Conway, a member of Holy Trinity Church, is a writer, consultant and stewardship educator.
