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In the first month of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has spoken words that do not seek applause but instead invite silence and depth. Several times a day, I find myself returning to his words, meditating on them. The insights are numerous and already deeply eloquent. Just a few weeks have passed since Leo XIV’s election, and yet the direction of his pontificate is already clear: a journey back to interiority, to communion, to the profound truth of the soul before God.
This is not a pontificate launched by the roar of crowds or the clamor of a media chasing sensational headlines. It is a quiet yet powerful beginning, breathing of spirituality, prayer, and fidelity to the Fathers—a return to the essentials of faith, to the Church, to Jesus Christ, the center and Lord of all.
This style surprises no one familiar with Robert Francis Prevost. An Augustinian by vocation, formation, and temperament, Leo XIV naturally places himself in the spiritual lineage of Saint Augustine, the bishop of Hippo who taught Christians to seek God not outside themselves, but within. It is a spirituality of interiority and communion, one that speaks powerfully even to those from the Benedictine tradition, because in Augustine, Benedict finds a spiritual ally, a teacher who had already understood that the human heart is restless until it rests in God.
Saint Benedict, father of Western monasticism, likely knew Augustine’s writings and absorbed his profound intuition, translating it into a Rule of Life where prayer, community, and work converge in a journey back to God.
Pope Leo XIV seems today to be a meeting point between these two springs: in him, Augustinian depth and Benedictine concreteness converge—the roots of Christian Western civilization and a prophetic vision for the Church’s future.
The Primacy of God and the Return to the Heart
Pope Leo XIV’s first words powerfully echoed Saint Augustine’s ever-relevant call: “Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi: in interiore homine habitat veritas” (De vera religione, XXXIX, 72) – "Do not go outside yourself; return to yourself: in the inner man dwells the truth."
In an age dominated by exteriority, by constant self-exposure, and a compulsive need to appear, the Pope has called the Church back to interiority, silence, listening, and the truth of the soul, where God reveals Himself not as an abstract idea but as a living and transforming presence.
This call intertwines with the opening of Saint Benedict’s Rule, which begins with a simple yet radical imperative: “Obsculta, o fili” — “Listen, my son.” Only those who know how to listen deeply, who open themselves to mystery with docility of heart, can truly become men of God.
Leo XIV reminds us that Church reform is not born of strategies or revolutions, but of personal conversion. It is a work of the Spirit, which begins in the heart of each person.
It is no coincidence that, addressing employees of the Holy See, he clearly stated:
"The best way to serve the Holy See is to seek to be saints, each of us according to our state in life and the task entrusted to us."
Community as the Path to God
For Augustine, the Christian is never an island: his vision of the Church as a “people walking together toward God” is well known. Benedict, too, makes communal life the indispensable framework for the spiritual path: no one is saved alone, and no one can say “I” without first saying “we.”
Leo XIV walks firmly along this same path. Especially in his meeting with Movements and Associations, he reminded us that the early Christians became a “temple of God not alone, but together” (cf. En. in Ps. 131,5). The Christian experience, he emphasized, is neither intellectualist nor introspective, but deeply communal: the Risen Lord is made present among gathered disciples. Emotions and personal convictions are not enough—what is needed is communion, is the Church.
Humility as the Way to God
Augustine and Benedict share a decisive certainty: humility is the royal road to God. For Augustine, humility is the key to the Incarnation: Christ lowered Himself to raise humanity, and those who follow Him must walk the same descending path. It is the virtue that opens the door to all others, the heart’s posturethat acknowledges one’s creatureliness in order to receive grace. Benedict, in turn, structures his entire Rule as a ladder of humility: each rung is a step toward God, but one ascends only by descending, imitating Christ obedient unto death. In an ecclesial time often marked by power struggles, desires for visibility, and spiritual dominance, Leo XIV presents himself as a servant, not a sovereign.
"The Pope, from Saint Peter to me, his unworthy successor, is a humble servant of God and of his brothers, nothing more," he told the cardinals shortly after his election. His words are not mere rhetoric: they express a program of life and ecclesial governance. During Mass with the cardinals, he affirmed: "His words recall a broader, indispensable commitment for anyone exercising authority in the Church: to disappear so that Christ remains, to become small so that He may be known and glorified, to spend oneself entirely so that no one may lack the opportunity to know and love Him." To this radical humility, which is both spiritual and concrete, Leo XIV adds a humble yet courageous wisdom in speaking the truth—not a truth shouted, but witnessed; not one opinion among many, but the Word that illuminates the meaning of the human, even at the cost of going against the current. Speaking to the diplomatic corps, he clearly stated: "Truly peaceful relations, even within the international community, cannot be built without truth. Where words take on ambiguous meanings and the virtual world—with its altered perception of reality—takes uncontested precedence, it becomes difficult to build authentic relationships, because the objective and real premises of communication are lost.
The Church, for her part, can never abstain from speaking the truth about man and the world, using, when necessary, even a frank language that may initially cause misunderstanding."
This is already a precious teaching: nothing is built without truth, and there is no truth without humility. Because only those who strip away their ego can become transparent to the Gospel. In Augustine and Benedict, Leo XIV recognizes not only two spiritual fathers but two converging paths guiding the Church today toward authenticity, communion, and service.
Interiority That Regenerates Structures
The constant temptation is to reform the Church by changing laws, organizational charts, or pastoral frameworks. Leo XIV instead shows an Augustinian conviction: there is no external reform without a renewed heart.
Following in the footsteps of the Saint of Hippo, the Pope is deeply aware that to change the world, one must begin with oneself. Benedict of Nursia wanted the monastery to be a school for the service of the Lord, not a machine of efficiency. The Pope reminds us that every effective reform is born from a return to the source, from a heart that listens to God and is transformed. This is the true urgency in the Church today: reconciled communities, faithful returning to Christ, renewed trust between priests and bishops, consciences able to see in the Church’s doctrine a light for life.
Unity: The Church’s Form and God’s Sign
It is within this horizon that Pope Leo XIV has strongly introduced, from his first days, the theme of unity—not as a slogan, but as a spiritual and ecclesial truth.
He cited Augustine, he cited Paulinus of Nola: “We have one head, one grace flows through us, we live on one bread, we walk one path, we dwell in the same house. […] We are one thing, both in the spirit and in the body of the Lord” (Letter 30,2).
This is the Church Leo XIV dreams of and seeks to foster: a family, not defined by labels, but by charity. Where differences do not divide, but enrich. Where charisms do not compete, but complement. A Church united because unified in God. In times of polarization and internal conflict, unity is not weakness, but prophecy. It is the proof that Christ is alive and present.
That is why Pope Leo XIV speaks of unity: not as strategy, but as the visible form of the mystery of the Triune God. It is the unity Benedict built through the stabilitas of the monastery. It is the unity Augustine preached as the fruit of the Spirit. It is the unity the Successor of Peter today calls us to rediscover as the foundation of mission and the condition of evangelical credibility. Leo XIV is awakening the deepest roots of Western Christian spirituality, allowing Augustine and Benedict to speak together, weaving them into a vital synthesis that calls the entire Church to return to God, to rediscover itself as a body, and to be reformed from the heart. It is a pontificate that begins under the sign of unity—not as a project to construct, but as a gift to receive.
Marco Felipe Perfetti
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