The Conclave of the Cardinals, in a secret ballot held behind closed doors, elected a new Pope, the American Cardinal Robert Prevost, who belongs to the Order of Saint Augustine.
In the Latin tradition there are various orders which were founded in the West. These are organized monastic communities of Roman Catholics, whose purpose is the spread of Christianity, the fight against heresies, the organization of education, missionary work, etc. The well-known monastic orders are those of the Benedictines, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, the Order of Saint Augustine, the Cistercians, the Trappists, and others.
These monastic orders were created in the attempt to support the “Church” against heresies, that is, they were used against heresies, as the Dominicans were instruments of the Inquisition. They were not created in order to save their members, living within the Church, but in order to “save” the Church, as if the Church were in need of saviors!
The Order of Saint Augustine, to which Pope Leo XIV belongs, was founded in 1244 by decision of Pope Innocent IV, through the union of various hermit monks who followed the rule of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who lived in the 4th–5th century A.D. Those who adopted the rule of Saint Augustine formed a mendicant movement and sought to bring monastic life into the urban environment.
It should be noted that Saint Augustine was considered the foundation of Scholasticism, the theology that developed between the 11th and 13th centuries and which used rationalism for the understanding of theological issues, based on the principle “credo ut intelligam” (I believe in order to understand), meaning that one first accepts a truth and then processes it rationally in order to understand it.
This theological tradition was followed by Barlaam of Calabria, who was condemned by the Orthodox Church through the struggles of Saint Gregory Palamas. Barlaam, following Saint Augustine, regarded knowledge of God through philosophy as superior, and knowledge of God through revelation to the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Saints as inferior.
The Order of Saint Augustine has practical purposes, is open and not very strict. Its members devote themselves to missionary work and exercise pastoral ministry to the laity.
Another interesting point is that Cardinal Robert Prevost, who was elected as the new Pope, following the custom of the Vatican, chose the name Leo XIV, which means that until now there have been 13 Popes with the name Leo.
In the history of the Papal throne, among those named Leo, the most important were Leo I (440–461), who played a significant role in the decision of the Fourth Ecumenical Council regarding the two natures of Christ; Leo III (795–816), who on Christmas Day in the year 800 in Rome crowned the Frank Charlemagne Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, but opposed the introduction of the Filioque in the Creed; and the most recent, Leo XIII (1878–1903).
Evidently, the new Pope chose the name Leo in honor of the last Pope Leo XIII, whom he esteems for the work he accomplished as Pope and therefore has him as a model in his life, desiring to follow the ways of his papacy. It is therefore necessary to see what the work of Pope Leo XIII was, whom the new Pope esteems and whose name he chose.
Pope Leo XIII had strong intellectual gifts; as a layman he was pious, coming from a noble family. He received an excellent education and was employed in the diplomatic corps. As is well known, clerics of the Vatican are called, when ordained, to choose which branch they will follow, the pastoral-priestly or the diplomatic, because the Vatican has two qualities: religious and political. During his tenure as Pope, he promoted the education of the clergy and missionary work, sought the improvement of the political relations of the Vatican with various States, and in general tried to strengthen “Roman Catholicism” throughout the world.
It has been written that Pope Leo XIII issued the encyclical Rerum Novarum (“On the New Things”), which dealt with the rights of workers and the capitalism of the industrial age, and is considered the first social encyclical of the Catholic Church, laying the foundation of modern Catholic social thought.
Pope Leo XIII “influenced Catholic Mariology,” that is, the teaching of Roman Catholics about the Virgin Mary, in which exaggerated theological views are emphasized concerning her role as co-redemptrix of the human race, and he issued ten encyclicals on the rosary, for which reason he was called “the Pope of the Rosary.”
Also, Pope Leo XIII was the first to conceive the idea of reviving Scholastic studies centered on Thomas Aquinas, a movement later followed more systematically by his successor Pope Pius X. This was a movement called Neo-Scholasticism or Neo-Thomism.
Leo XIII lived in a time when the basic principles of the doctrinal system of the “Roman Catholics,” namely Scholasticism, which had been systematized in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas, were in decline. At that time, Enlightenment ideas and Modernism prevailed, undermining the foundations of “Roman Catholicism.”
In 1870 the First Vatican Council was convened, which sought to stop the current of doubt regarding the faith and defined the dogma of Papal infallibility, because Papism was “severely tormented and the bonds of unity are gravely and daily loosened. The divinely given authority of the Church is being attacked and its rights are curtailed.” In other words, the principles of the Enlightenment were attacking the faith of the Roman Catholics. Beyond the Enlightenment, Protestant principles as well as existentialist searches of Western people also undermined internally the edifice of the Vatican.
Pope Leo XIII undertook the task of supporting Roman Catholicism in the stream of Modernism and issued the encyclical Aeterni Patris on August 4, 1879, on “the proper use of philosophy by Christians with a focus on the complete works of Thomas Aquinas.”
I should remind that Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) was the greatest of the Scholastic theologians, who in his works, mainly in the Summa Theologiae, tried to secure the dogmas of Roman Catholicism based on the teaching of Saint Augustine (354–430 A.D.) combined with Aristotelian philosophy, in reality uniting Aristotle with Neoplatonism.
However, Scholastic philosophy, which was based on rationalism and developed mainly by Thomas Aquinas, received strong criticism from Nominalism of the 14th century, and later from the Renaissance, Protestantism, the Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Existentialism. Thus, the foundations of Thomas Aquinas were shaken, as were the foundations of the Roman Catholic faith, which means that all of Roman Catholicism was found in great weakness.
Precisely then Leo XIII issued his aforementioned encyclical with the purpose of establishing “the correct use of philosophy” through the works of Thomas Aquinas in a new interpretative reading, as his successor Pius X did with another encyclical issued on September 8, 1907.
In any case, the encyclical of Leo XIII emphasizes the benefit of philosophy in the defense of sacred dogmas against Modernism, while Orthodox theology of the Fathers is based on the vision of God experienced by the Prophets, Apostles, and Fathers, expressed in the philosophical terms of their time.
The encyclical mentions some ancient common Fathers, such as Saint Gregory the Theologian, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Basil the Great, etc., but it considers that the “summary of all” is Saint Augustine and the Scholastic teachers, such as Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas.
Thus, emphasis is given to the study of the works of Thomas Aquinas for confronting Modernism expressed through the Reformation and the Enlightenment. It is proposed “that every science be received through the Scholastic spirit, so that revelation and human reason may complement each other as the invincible fortress of faith.”
This initiative of Leo XIII was called Neo-Scholasticism or Neo-Thomism, meaning it was a reinterpretation of certain principles of Thomas Aquinas, who had relied on Saint Augustine and Aristotle, and it was placed at the center of theological studies, in the life of Monastic Centers, and in modern theology in general, as a response to the new philosophical currents.
If the new Pope Leo XIV, who admires Pope Leo XIII, whose name he has taken, follows this tendency of Neo-Thomism–Neo-Scholasticism combined with missionary work—if he moves between conservatism and modernity—or if for other reasons he chose this name, we shall see in the future with the relevant decisions he will take.
