Tablet features – The way of Augustine 4

In May, a very short time after the death of Pope Francis, the white smoke of the Holy Spirit gave us a pope for the world and a bishop for Rome. Two perspectives on the papacy of Leo XIV now unfolding may help us to see more clearly the context in which world Christianity finds itself. The first is that both men were formed by religious orders, in one case the Jesuits, in the other the Augustinians. The second is that the writings of St Augustine, while they defy the title systematic, offer a wide-ranging panoply of distilled response to the major theological issues of his day. Augustine was a diocesan bishop who lived in a community of trusted friendship all his life and was also a major influence in shaping the relationship between Church and State in imperial times. The parallels with Leo XIV are easy to find.

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