Analysis: At 100 days, Pope Leo’s papacy rooted in St. Augustine, reflection, unity

(OSV News) — As the calendar marks 100 days of Pope Leo XIV’s papacy Aug. 16, experts are scrutinizing his words and actions in hopes of pinpointing his leadership style, priorities and vision for the church’s future.

But, unlike Pope Francis, whose novel decisions on domicile and dress — along with surprise phone calls, outings and remarks to journalists — flavored his first months in 2013, Pope Leo’s papacy has been more tranquil, marked by his reflective and observant posture, scholars told OSV News.

Historian Joëlle Rollo-Koster, an editor of “The Cambridge History of the Papacy,” a three-volume set published this summer by Cambridge University Press, sees Pope Leo, 69, using his first months as a period of receiving, observing and testing.

“He has been quiet and is less ‘noisy’ than Francis,” said Rollo-Koster, who teaches at The University of Rhode Island and is the author of several books on the papacy.

“He is less Argentinian and very Peruvian … in his behavior: calm, reflected,” she added, nodding to the decades the U.S.-born Pope Leo spent in priestly and episcopal ministry in the coastal South American country. “He’s smart. He’s looking at everything. He is talking with everybody. And then we’re going to see him coming out with his real personality.”

Since his May 8 election, however, Pope Leo has positioned himself as a figure of unity and peace, and a defender of humanity amid rapid changes in technology.

He first mentioned artificial intelligence in an audience with cardinals May 10, two days after they elected him pope. In explaining what inspired his choice of name, he told them that Pope Leo XIII in the 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” addressed challenges amid the Industrial Revolution. “In our own day, the church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor,” he said.

On May 12, he reiterated that concern in his first audience with journalists, saying AI has “immense potential” but “nevertheless requires responsibility and discernment in order to ensure that it can be used for the good of all, so that it can benefit all of humanity.”

Meanwhile, he has drawn attention to international crises and especially expressed concern about Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Speaking to journalists Aug. 13, he described the Holy See’s efforts as “‘soft diplomacy,’ always inviting, encouraging the pursuit of nonviolence through dialogue and seeking solutions — because these problems cannot be solved by war.”

John Cavadini, director of the McGrath Institute for Church Life and a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, said Pope Leo has presented himself as a “leader in whom you can have confidence.”

His use of traditional symbols of the papacy, such as wearing the papal cape known as a “mozzetta” when he first appeared as pope, establishing his residence in the papal apartments and seeking summer respite at Castel Gandolfo, indicates Pope Leo’s aim to be “a leader because of his office and not so much of his personal charism,” Cavadini said.

“I think that gives people confidence and I think it’s intended to give people confidence — confidence not just in himself personally, but in the office that he holds, which he obviously holds in high respect or high regard,” he added. “He wants to be an interpretation of the papal office that’s credible for everyone.”

While some papal watchers have suggested that the first months of this pontificate have provided little fodder for evaluation, Cavadini said that Pope Leo instead appears to be “a very circumspect guy” exercising prudence, and who respects his role as representing something larger than himself.

“He doesn’t want a personal preference to quickly define the office,” he said.

Americans especially are looking for signs of national pride or affinity in the first pope from the United States. An avid Chicago White Sox fan, Pope Leo has signed at least one baseball, has been delivered a deep-dish pizza, and has been gifted with sports memorabilia from his native Chicago, including by U.S. Vice President JD Vance.

Cavadini says he sees Pope Leo conveying a traditionally American sense of responsibility to care for the downtrodden, “for helping people who need help.”

“I think that’s very deeply ingrained in the American psyche, and I think he wants to make sure he’s perceived that way, as distinguished from any kind of political ambition that might be attached to either political party,” he said. “I know we haven’t always lived up to that as Americans and in some ways it’s part of a mythology; but in another way, I think it’s just a deep aspiration of Americans to be the ones who are of service.”

Rollo-Koster said she sees an international character in Pope Leo’s papacy, formed by his years of living in Peru and Rome, and his global travel while serving as the Augustinians’ prior general. Some of the “Americanness” she sees attributed to him, such as sports team affinity, feels forced, she noted.

So have efforts to draw a disconnect between him and Pope Francis because Pope Leo has made different decisions about how to “perform” his role, she said. While the two men differ in personalities, Pope Leo has demonstrated continuity with Pope Francis’ key objectives, including the promotion of integral ecology, which Pope Leo highlighted with the new Mass formulary “for the care of creation” he first celebrated July 9.

“He is following the tracks of Francis: care for spirituality, care for the poor, care for the disenfranchised, care for working-class people, care for medicine,” she said. Some of his decisions could be intentional foils to the Trump administration’s actions in opposite directions, she noted.

Pope Leo has, however, made obvious his Augustinian worldview, steeped in the writings and vision of St. Augustine, the renowned theologian and philosopher who was a bishop in Northern Africa during the fifth century, and whose thought shaped the founding of the Augustinian Order in 1244. Pope Leo, who entered the order after college in 1977 and served 12 years as its international leader, frequently quotes St. Augustine in his homilies and public addresses.

Standing on St. Peter’s balcony May 8, Pope Leo described himself as a “son of St. Augustine,” and his first months as pope have underscored that identity, said Augustinian Father Kevin DePrinzio, Villanova University’s vice president for mission and ministry.

“His leadership style is Augustinian. It’s ‘for’ and ‘with.’ It’s like, ‘I’m with you in this,'” Father DePrinzio said. “I think it’s a very accessible spirituality that people are going to get pulled in to. It’s marked by things like hospitality, friendship … the restless heart — you know, the heart on fire — and it’s deeply, deeply human stuff.”

On a personal level, Father DePrinzio said he sees Pope Leo as an introvert given grace to act as an extrovert to meet the needs of his new role. The priest first met the future Pope Leo while in formation for the Augustinians in the late 1990s and their paths have continued to cross. Last year, Father DePrinzio led a pilgrimage of Villanova students to Rome and Vatican City, where then-Cardinal Robert Prevost celebrated Mass for them in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica. A well-circulated photo shows the group posing with a “V” gesture for Villanova, Pope Leo’s alma mater.

St. Augustine’s first biographer described him as a mediator, and Father DePrinzio sees Pope Leo assuming a similar role.

“This world needs to know how to dialogue, so I think he’s going to be modeling it,” he said. “It’s going to be hard to pin him down ideologically. If people are going to be looking for that, I think they’re going to be really confused, and they’re not going to be able to do it.”

Instead, Pope Leo is likely to continually return to a theme he emphasized at his inauguration Mass: unity.

“For an Augustinian, unity is not uniformity, where everybody looks alike,” Father DePrinzio said. “It’s going to be interesting to see how it all plays out. But I think he’s definitely up for the task.”

He added, “I think he’s really what we need.”

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