- Maria Wiering (OSV News)
After being unveiled on May 8 in St. Peter's Square, the new Pope Leo XIV described himself as a "son of St. Augustine"Who are the Augustinians, the order of Pope Leo XIV?
The first American Pope has spoken in the past with affection about the fifth century convert, bishop and intellectual powerhouse, considered the father of his religious Order, the Order of St. Augustine. Although their Order was founded more than 800 years after Augustine's death, the Augustinians draw on his wisdom and holiness to shape their community.
In the early 13th century, loosely organized communities of hermits living in the Italian region of Tuscany sought the guidance of Pope Innocent IV. This Pontiff was known to be an excellent canonist or scholar of church law. The aim was to help them adopt a common rule of life in order to live more uniformly.
Inspired in part by other new orders
They were inspired, in part, by the recent formation of other new religious orders. Including the Franciscans in 1209 and the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans, in 1216. Both were mendicant orders. They depended on begging and labor for their livelihood. Unlike the Benedictines and other long-established monks, they did not swear stability, they were not tied to a single monastery for life.
Pope Innocent advised the Tuscan hermits to organize themselves under the government of St. Augustine, a guide to religious life that the saint had developed around 400. He covered the breadth of religious life, including the purpose and basis of common life. In addition, prayer, moderation and self-denial, safeguarding chastity and fraternal correction, and government and obedience.
Initially written as a letter to a community of religious women in Hippo, the diocese of present-day Algeria that St. Augustine led, the rule reached Europe. It influenced St. Benedict, who founded the Benedictines in Italy in 529.
Mendicant model of religious life
The rule of St. Augustine had also informed the Dominicans, but when the Tuscan hermits adopted the rule, they also took on the name and spiritual paternity of its author. In time, they moved from a hermit lifestyle to the mendicant model expressed by other medieval orders, hence they became known as "friars."
Religious communities of women also joined the Augustinians, and there were saints and saints, such as St. Clare of Montefalco and St. Rita of Cascia. Male Augustinian saints include. St. John of Sahagúnone of the first Spanish Augustinian friars, and St. Nicholas of Tolentinewho was the first Augustinian to be canonized after the "great union" of the order in 1256..
The Order of St. Augustine today
Today, the Order of St. Augustine is an international religious community that includes more than 2,800 members in almost 50 countries. In the United States they are organized into three provinces or geographic areas. Lay men and women also affiliate themselves with the Augustinians and the spirituality of the Order and support its work.
The Augustinians in the United States have a strong reputation in education and founded Villanova University near Philadelphia and Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts. They also operate high schools in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ontario and Pennsylvania. They also care for several parishes and have missions in Japan and Peru.
They are "active contemplatives".
Who are the Augustinians, was the question. Contemporary Augustinians describe themselves as "active contemplatives," with varied ministries who are "called to restlessness." A nod to the famous description that St. Augustine makes of himself in his influential autobiography, "Confessions": "You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you".
The U.S. Augustinian vocations website describes this restlessness as "a divine gift" that they believe...can direct us to God."
Despite the 800-year history of the Order, and its Italian origins, Pope Leo XIV is the most important first Augustinian to be named Pope.
Brief facts
Born at ChicagoPope Leo attended an Augustinian high school seminary, near Holland, Michigan, and then to Villanova Universitywhere he majored in mathematics, before moving to entering the novitiate agustiHe was ordained in St. Louis in 1977. He professed his first vows in 1978 and his final vows in 1981. He was ordained a priest the following year.
Missionary work in Peru
His ministries as a young priest included missionary work in Peru and seminary formation before becoming provincial of his Order's Chicago-based Midwest province, Our Mother of Good Counsel, and then world leader of his Order, a post he held for two six-year terms.
Augustinians around the world received the news of an Augustinian bishop with joy. The head of the Augustinian Province of the Midwest, Father Provincial Anthony B. Pizzo, said on May 8 that the community celebrated the news of Pope Leo's election and that "it is an honor that he is one of our own, a brother formed in the restless heart of the Augustinian Order."
"Bridge builder."
"We see him as a bridge builder, rooted in the spirit of St. Augustine, walking forward with the whole Church as a companion on the journey," he said.
After identifying himself as an Augustinian at St. Peter's Lodge on May 8, the Pope Leo quoted St. Augustine: "For you I am a bishop, with you I am a Christian."
"In this sense, we can all walk together towards that homeland that God has prepared," he added.
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Maria Wiering is a senior writer for OSV News.
