VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV’s devotion to St. Augustine, his life and ministry as a member of the Augustinian order and his focus on the church unity are reflected in his episcopal motto and coat of arms.
When he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica shortly after his election May 8, he introduced himself as “an Augustinian, a son of St. Augustine.”

And he explained that the cardinals who elected him “have chosen me to be the Successor of Peter and to walk together with you as a Church, united, ever pursuing peace and justice, ever seeking to act as men and women faithful to Jesus Christ, in order to proclaim the Gospel without fear, to be missionaries.”

His episcopal motto is, “In Illo uno unum,” or literally “In the One, we are one.”

Vatican News explained that the phrase is taken from St. Augustine’s “Exposition on Psalm 127,” where he explains that “although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one.”

As a cardinal, he told Vatican News in 2023, “As can be seen from my episcopal motto, unity and communion are truly part of the charism of the Order of St. Augustine, and also of my way of acting and thinking.”

“I believe it is very important to promote communion in the church, and we know well that communion, participation and mission are the three keywords of the Synod” of Bishops on synodality, he said. “So, as an Augustinian, for me promoting unity and communion is fundamental.”

His shield, now topped by a miter instead of the red galero hat on the shield of cardinals, is divided diagonally into two. The upper half features a blue background with a white lily or fleur-de-lis, symbolizing the Virgin Mary, but also his French heritage.

The lower half of the shield has a light background and displays an image common to the religious orders named after and inspired by St. Augustine: a closed book with a heart pierced by an arrow.

Vatican News said, “This is a direct reference to the conversion experience of St. Augustine himself, who described his personal encounter with God’s word using the phrase: ‘Vulnerasti cor meum verbo tuo’ – ‘You have pierced my heart with your Word.’”

By Maria Wiering
(OSV News) – As the Catholic Church welcomes its first American pope, here are 10 things to know about Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert F. Prevost.

1. Chicagoan. Pope Leo was born Sept. 14, 1955, and grew up in the south suburbs of Chicago. His father, Louis Marius Prevost, was an educator, and his mother, Mildred Martínez, was a librarian. He has two older brothers, was active in his childhood parish and his brother John says he is a White Sox fan. His family is reportedly of French, Italian and Spanish origin, with Creole heritage on his mother’s side. He loves the sport of tennis and plays regularly.
   
2. Cosmopolitan. While American, Pope Leo has a global perspective, having lived most of his adult life in Peru and Rome. Based on his assignments, it appears that he has spent less than five years combined living in the United States since his priesthood ordination in 1982.
   
3. Augustinian. He is a member of the Order of St. Augustine, a religious order that dates to 1244 and was founded to live the spirituality of early Christians. The order considers St. Augustine, a fifth-century theologian, philosopher and bishop of Hippo, its father. Before ordination, Pope Leo attended St. Augustine Seminary High School in Holland, Michigan, and Villanova University near Philadelphia, both Augustinian institutions. Augustinians are mendicant, meaning that they traditionally survive on begging or their own work, do not hold property and do not spend their life in a single location. Pope Leo is the first Augustinian to assume the chair of Peter, and the second member of a religious order to do so in nearly two centuries – the first being the first Jesuit pope, Pope Francis.
   
4. Canonist. Pope Leo is a canon lawyer, having received his licentiate and doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, also known as the Angelicum, in Rome. He wrote doctoral thesis on “The role of the local prior in the Order of Saint Augustine.” For nearly a decade he served the Archdiocese of Trujillo, Peru, as its judicial vicar, which oversees the diocesan tribunal. During that time he was also a professor of canon, patristic and moral law in the San Carlos e San Marcelo Major Seminary.
   
5. Leader. Pope Leo has an impressive range of leadership experience. After several pastoral and seminary formation roles in Chicago and Peru, he was elected in 1999 to oversee his order’s province in Chicago, and then two years later, he took the helm of the order worldwide. He was reelected for a second six-year term, ultimately holding the Rome-based position for 12 years. Then, in 2014, Pope Francis appointed him to oversee the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, a role he held for nine years and that included a year-long stint as the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Callao, Peru, whose see city is nearly 500 miles south of Chiclayo. In 2023, Pope Francis appointed him as prefect of the Holy See’s Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the appointments of bishops worldwide.
   
6. Baby boomer. At age 69, Pope Leo is seven years younger than Pope Francis was when he was elected in 2013, and nine years younger than Pope Benedict XVI when he was elected in 2005. He is 11 years older than St. John Paul II, who was 58 at his 1978 election.
   
7. Socially minded. His name is an apparent nod to Pope Leo XIII, who led the church from 1878 until 1903 and is especially known for his 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum,” or “On the Condition of the Working Classes.” That document responded to the state of the industrial society at the end of the 19th century and cemented Pope Leo XIII’s position as the modern father of Catholic social doctrine. Pope Leo XIII also composed the popular St. Michael prayer, penned an 1879 encyclical calling for the rooting of Christian philosophy in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and issued an 1899 apostolic letter condemning “Americanism,” a worldview he feared was held by American prelates that bolstered American values such as pluralism and individualism to the detriment of Catholic teaching.
   
8. Peace bearer. Pope Leo’s first words to the world were “Peace be with you” on a balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica overlooking masses of people in the square. “Beloved brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the Risen Christ, the Good Shepherd who has given his life for the flock of God,” he continued. “I, too, would like this greeting of peace to enter your hearts, reach your families, to all people, wherever they may be, to all peoples, to all the earth. … It comes from God, God who loves us all unconditionally.”
   
9. Polyglot. Pope Leo speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese, and he reads Latin and German. He gave his first greeting May 8 in Italian but switched to Spanish to greet the faithful of his former Diocese of Chiclayo before giving the “urbi et orbi” blessing in Latin. On May 9, he began his first public homily with English but preached most of it in Italian.
   
10. Successor of Peter. On his first full day as pope May 9, Pope Leo preached before the College of Cardinals who elected him, speaking of an exchange between Jesus and St. Peter, the first pope. He called the church “an ark of salvation sailing through the waters of history and a beacon that illumines the dark nights of this world. And this, not so much through the magnificence of her structures or the grandeur of her buildings – like the monuments among which we find ourselves – but rather through the holiness of her members.”

(Maria Wiering is senior writer for OSV News.)

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Less than 48 hours after being elected, Pope Leo XIV got in the front seat of a minivan and traveled 40 miles southeast from the Vatican to pray at a Marian shrine cared for by his Augustinian confreres.

And on his way back to the Vatican May 10, he went to Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major, stopping to pray at the tomb of Pope Francis and before the icon of Mary “Salus Populi Romani” (health of the Roman people).

The Vatican press office said he arrived at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel in Genazzano just after 4 p.m. local time. The shrine is famous for a small fresco of Mary holding the infant Jesus.

A description on a website of Catholic shrines says, “The Christ Child nestles close to his mother. Mary supports Jesus with her left arm. She bends her head toward him, and their cheeks touch tenderly.”

The ancient image is “dear to the order” of Augustinians and was beloved by Pope Leo XIII, whom the new pope is named after, the press office said.

Several hundred people cheered the pope’s arrival at the shrine, and he greeted many of them before going into the shrine to greet the friars. “He stopped in prayer in front of the altar and then in front of the image of the Virgin where he and those present recited the prayer of St. John Paul II to Our Lady of Good Counsel,” the Vatican said.

St. John Paul had visited the shrine in April 1993, and the prayer he wrote begins by assuring Mary that the faithful turn to her with “their hopes and sorrows, their desires and needs, their many tears shed and their yearning for a better future.”

St. John Paul’s prayer asks Mary to turn her gaze on the faithful, “accept their generous intentions, accompany them on their journey toward a future of justice, solidarity and peace.”

Pope Leo told those gathered at the shrine, “I wanted so much to come here in these first days of the new ministry that the church has given me” to seek Mary’s help “to carry out this mission as Successor of Peter.”

The new pope spoke of his “trust in the Mother of Good Counsel,” who has been a companion of “light, wisdom.”

Before leaving the town, he told the people gathered outside that the Marian image is “a great gift” that carries with it a responsibility. “Just as our Mother never abandons her children, you must remain faithful to her,” he said.

By Carol Glatz

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When Pope Francis was elected as the first Latin American pontiff, he said his brother cardinals went out of their way to pick someone from the “ends of the earth.”

He spent the rest of his pontificate going back out to those peripheries, traveling to more than 65 nations, preferring those that were poor, scarred by war, marginalized and forgotten. Then the peripheries came to him on the day of his funeral in St. Peter’s Square.

More than 160 nations sent delegations April 26, headed by kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, government officials and ambassadors.

Several nations were geographically far-flung like the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

Many were nations on the fringes of the world’s attention, but where the pope never visited like Albania, Iceland, El Salvador, Angola, Gabon, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Togo, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Qatar, Oman and Vietnam.

All the countries the pope visited in his 12-year pontificate were represented except Kazakhstan and South Korea, according to the list of confirmed delegations the Vatican press office released late April 25.

The nations on the peripheries the pope visited that came to Rome to return the honor included: Timor-Leste, Cuba, Madagascar, Central African Republic, Congo, South Sudan, Kenya, Mozambique, Morocco, Mongolia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Myanmar, the Philippines, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Palestine and many others.

But of course, political elites and nations at the center of power were present, too: U.S. President Donald J. Trump and his wife Melania, French President Emmanuel Macron, Argentine President Javier Milei, Italian President Sergio Mattarella, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Britain’s Prince William and Mary Simon, the governor-general of Canada.

Delegations also were present from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan. However, Taiwan, not mainland China, was represented by Chen Chien-jen who served as vice president and premier of Taiwan. Only a dozen countries, including Vatican City State, officially recognize Taiwan as an independent sovereign state while China maintains its claim over the island.

Vatican protocol for a papal funeral places cardinals, bishops and ecumenical delegates to the left of the casket and heads of state to the right.

Of the nearly 40 ecumenical delegates, there were Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople; Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, head of external church relations for the Moscow Patriarchate; Catholicos Karekin II, the patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church; as well as representatives of the Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist and Evangelical communities.

Protocol also determines the seating arrangements within the VIP section for political leaders. The large delegations from Italy and Argentina, the pope’s home country, were in the front row, followed by royalty, then international leaders in order of political hierarchy and in alphabetical order of their country’s name in French.

That meant U.S. President Trump was nowhere near Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Representing “États-Unis,” Trump was invited to sit near Estonia, Finland and France.

However, world leaders had a chance to pray at the pope’s closed casket in the basilica before the funeral started. Zelenskyy and Trump sat down briefly for a “very productive” talk, according to the White House. Zelenskyy said on Telegram it was a “good meeting. One-on-one, we managed to discuss a lot. We hope for a result from all the things that were said.”

The “very symbolic meeting,” he said, “has the potential to become historic if we achieve joint results. Thank you, President Donald Trump!” A photo of Zelenskyy, Trump, Macron and Starmer meeting and speaking together in the basilica was also published on social media.

Nonetheless, the complex seating arrangements for the funeral meant many traditional enemies and nations at war were not seated near each other.

For example, Zelenskyy, who is a head of state, was seated ahead of Russia’s representative, Olga Lyubimova, who is the minister of culture.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Mustafa was also seated far from Israel’s ambassador to the Vatican, Yaron Sideman, who attended even though official representatives of Israel are normally prohibited from participating in formal activities on the Jewish Sabbath.

“In this case, an exception was granted because of its importance,” Sideman told Ansa, the Italian wire service, April 24. “Israel attaches great importance to expressing its condolences and joining the Catholic world in mourning the passing of the pontiff.”

Even though alphabetically close, Armenia and Azerbaijan, who are locked in an ethnic and territorial conflict over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, were seated far apart since Armenia sent its president and Azerbaijan sent the speaker of its national assembly.

Because he is not an active head of state, former U.S. President Joe Biden, a Catholic, was seated in a separate VIP section and not near Trump, who has repeatedly vilified him publicly.

In another section, numerous representatives of other religions were present such as Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, Zoroastrians, Sikhs, Muslims and Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome.

The presence of so many world leaders at Pope Francis’ funeral and their praise and accolades after his death April 21 sparked accusations of hypocrisy, especially in Italy, where the government has taken a hard line against immigration.

Achille Occhetto, an Italian politician, said, “Now that Francis is dead, all the floggers of migrants, champions against welcoming, in short, all shades of bullies and authoritarians in the world, pretend to bow to him.”

Cardinal Domenico Battaglia of Naples told the Italian daily, La Repubblica, April 26, “There is a risk of beatifying him in words, only to forget him in deeds.”

Pope Francis “spoke plainly” without mincing words as all prophets do, he said. The cardinal compared the situation to King Herod and John the Baptist. Herod “welcomed him, listened to him and then did the opposite of what John preached.”

The pope’s funeral provided a rare opportunity for enemies and friends to come together as one and be reminded of his invitation to “build bridges and not walls.” But he also warned that the world needed action and not words.

By Justin McLellan
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has approved the next phase of the Synod of Bishops on synodality, launching a three-year implementation process that will culminate in an ecclesial assembly at the Vatican in October 2028.

In a letter published March 15, Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the synod, announced that the synod’s new phase will focus on applying its conclusions at all levels of the church, with dioceses, bishops’ conferences and religious communities working to integrate synodality into daily church life before the meeting at the Vatican in 2028.

“For now, therefore, a new synod will not be convened; instead, the focus will be on consolidating the path taken so far,” he wrote in the letter addressed to all bishops, eparchs and the presidents of national and regional bishops’ conferences.

Cardinal Grech told bishops that Pope Francis approved the three-year plan March 11 at Rome’s Gemelli hospital where he has been being treated since Feb. 14.

The final document of the synod on synodality, approved by Pope Francis in October 2024, emphasized synodality as essential to the church’s mission and called for greater lay participation, mandatory pastoral councils and continued study on women in ministry and seminary formation.

Over the next three years, dioceses, bishops’ conferences and religious communities will work to integrate synodal principles into church life with the guidance of a Vatican-issued document scheduled to be published in May.

Evaluation assemblies at diocesan, national and continental levels from 2027 to early 2028 will assess progress before a final ecclesial assembly at the Vatican in October 2028, where church leaders will reflect on the synodal journey and discern future steps, the cardinal said.

According to the apostolic constitution “Universi Dominici Gregis,” which governs procedures when the papacy is vacant, a council or Synod of Bishops is immediately suspended when a pope dies or resigns. All meetings, decisions and promulgations must cease until a new pope explicitly orders their continuation, or they are considered null.

In the letter, Cardinal Grech noted that implementation phase of the synod “provides the framework” for implementing the results of the 10 Vatican-appointed study groups which, since March 2024, have been examining key issues raised during the first session of the synodal assembly in 2023, such as the role of women in the church, seminary formation and church governance.

The study groups were scheduled to present their findings to the pope before June 2025; however, they can also offer an “interim report” then as they continue their work, Cardinal Grech said.

The cardinal added that a key component of the implementation process will be the strengthening of synodal teams, composed of clergy, religious and laypeople, who will work alongside bishops to accompany “the ordinary synodal life of local churches.”

In an interview with Vatican News accompanying the letter’s publication March 15, Cardinal Grech said that this phase of the synodal process is not about adding bureaucratic tasks but about “helping the churches to walk in a synodal style.” He explained that the church must continue “a path of accompaniment and evaluation” rather than treating the synod as a one-time event.

The cardinal encouraged local churches to engage in ongoing reflection on the insights of the synod rather than simply replicating past listening sessions, warning that the synod’s implementation “must not take place in isolation.”

The 2028 ecclesial assembly, Cardinal Grech said, will be an opportunity to “gather the fruits of the journey” and offer the pope “a real ecclesial experience to inform his discernment as the successor of Peter, with perspectives to propose to the entire church.”

By Justin McLellan

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – A painting of Christ being laid in the tomb, long hidden under layers of overpainting and forgotten by history, will once again be visible to the public in an upcoming exhibit at the Vatican.

The Vatican Museums announced an exhibit March 17 showcasing a newly restored painting of the deposition of Christ, now definitively attributed to Renaissance master Andrea Mantegna, in a special exhibit titled “The Mantegna of Pompei. A Rediscovered Masterpiece.”

The painting had long been shrouded in mystery. Historical records from the 16th century referenced such a work in the Basilica of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, but over time it vanished from public knowledge, raising doubts about its existence and authorship.

Centuries later, the painting surfaced at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompei, where it remained largely unnoticed. Recent research and careful restoration led by the Vatican Museums have brought the piece back into the light, confirming its origins and artistic value. Key to the rediscovery was the removal of heavy overpainting, which had obscured Mantegna’s original composition and detail, the Vatican Museums said in a statement.

Andrea Mantegna’s style is marked by classical influence, precise perspective and sculptural figures. Today, his works can be found in in museums such as the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery of London, the Uffizi in Florence and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, said in the Vatican’s press release that the restorations “revealed iconographic and technical details that confirm Mantegna’s authorship, restoring to art history a masterpiece thought to be lost.”

Scientific analysis and thorough restoration “have clarified that the work is not a copy but an original painting by Mantegna,” said Fabrizio Biferali, curator of 15th-16th century artwork in the Vatican Museums. “Its iconography is connected to Renaissance models and classicism typical of the artist, with references to antiquity that make it unique in Mantegna’s work.”

The painting, which belongs to the Shrine of the Virgin of the Rosary in Pompei, will be exhibited in the Vatican Museums’ picture gallery beginning March 20 along with a video detailing the restoration.

Archbishop Tommaso Caputo, the prelate of Pompei, said the painting is “is a work that speaks to faith and culture, marking a new chapter in the history of Pompei.”