Editorial

Look to towering figure of St. Augustine

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 was also formed as an Augustinian, and the influence of St. Augustine can be seen in everything our new pope says and does.

In an address to Catholic legislators from different regions of the world, Pope Leo invited lawmakers (and all of us) to look to St. Augustine for solutions to the challenges facing our world today.

As the pope said: “To find our footing in the present circumstances, I suggest that we might look to the past, to that towering figure of St. Augustine of Hippo. As a leading voice of the Church in the late Roman era, he witnessed immense upheavals and social disintegration. In response, he penned The City of God, a work that offers a vision of hope, a vision of meaning that can still speak to us today.”

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, toward the end of the great Western Roman empire. Is it not also our situation in the second decade of the third millennium after Christ?

Pope Leo urged Catholic lawmakers and politicians to see the essential similarities between St. Augustine’s day and our own: “Augustine encouraged Christians to infuse the earthly society with the values of God’s kingdom, thereby directing history toward its ultimate fulfillment in God, while also allowing for authentic human flourishing in this life. This theological vision can anchor us in the face of today’s changing currents: the emergence of new centers of gravity, the shifting of old alliances and the unprecedented influence of global corporations and technologies, not to mention numerous violent conflicts.”

Ours is a chaotic and dangerous time—illustrated by the horrific shooting at Annunciation Church in Minneapolis, where two people died and 21 were injured. Pope Leo XIV sent his “heartfelt condolences and the assurance of spiritual closeness” to all those affected by this “terrible tragedy.” Brian Disney, superintendent of archdiocesan schools, also spoke of the sadness that all Catholics in central and southern Indiana feel on behalf of all those who are impacted by this violence. “Moments like this call on us to lift up the victims’ families, students, faculty and staff in prayer,” Disney said.

At the time of the 80th anniversary of the atomic 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, and 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 a 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?

“The so-called ideal future presented to us is often one of technological convenience and consumer satisfaction. Yet we know that this is not enough,” he said. “We see this in affluent societies where many people struggle with loneliness, with despair and a sense of meaninglessness.”

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.”

—Daniel Conway