ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV urged his fellow Augustinians on Monday to work humbly for unity in the Catholic Church, as he opened the global assembly of the ancient religious order that is now very much in the spotlight since one of their own is history’s first Augustinian pope.
Leo has emphasized that he is very much a “child of St. Augustine,” the 5th-century theologian who inspired the 13th-century religious Augustinian order as a community of “mendicant” friars. Today, Augustinian spirituality is rooted in a deep interior life of prayer, living in community, and journeying together in search of truth in God.
The pope, who headed the order from 2001-2013, seemed very much at home among his confreres gathered at the Basilica of St. Augustine off Piazza Navona, which houses the tomb of A