When Pope Leo XIV was once elected pope, the assembled crowd reacted with pleasure but in addition with wonder: He was once the primary pope from america, and North The united states extra extensively. Additionally, he was once the primary member of the Order of St. Augustine to be elected to the papacy.
Out of all 267 popes, simplest 51 were individuals of spiritual orders. Pope Francis was once elected in 2013 as the primary member of the Jesuit order, the Society of Jesus; he was once additionally the primary member of any non secular order to be selected in over 150 years.
As a expert in medieval Christianity, I’m aware of the origins of many Catholic non secular orders, and I used to be intrigued by way of the collection of a member of the Order of St. Augustine to apply a Jesuit as pope.
So, who’re the Augustinians?
Early priests and worry for group
In antiquity, some Christians selected to steer a extra best possible non secular existence by way of leaving extraordinary society and dwelling in combination in teams, within the desert. They’d be led by way of an older, extra skilled particular person – an abbot. As priests, they adopted a suite of laws and tips known as a “monastic rule.”
The earliest of those regulations, composed concerning the 12 months 400, is attributed to an influential theologian, later a bishop in North Africa, known as St. Augustine of Hippo. The Rule of St. Augustine is a brief textual content that presented priests a company construction for his or her day-to-day lives of labor and prayer, in addition to tips on how those regulations might be applied by way of the abbot in numerous scenarios. The guideline is each company and versatile.
The primary bankruptcy stresses the significance of “common life”: It instructs priests to like God and one’s neighbor by way of dwelling “together in oneness of mind and heart, mutually honoring God in yourselves, whose temples you have become.”
That is the overriding idea that shapes all later directions in Augustinian rule.
As an example, Bankruptcy III offers with how the priests must behave when out in public. They must now not pass on my own, however in a bunch, and now not interact in scandalous conduct – in particular, watching girls.
If one monk begins watching a lady, one of the vital different priests with him must “admonish” him. If he does it once more, his better half must inform the abbot first, ahead of another witnesses are notified, in order that the monk can attempt to alternate his conduct on his personal first, in order to not reason disruption locally.
On account of this readability and versatility, its worry for each the group and the person individuals, many early non secular communities within the early Heart Ages followed the Rule of St. Augustine; formal papal approval was once now not required at the moment.
Mendicant friars in medieval Europe
Via the tip of the twelfth century, Western Europe had transform a lot more urbanized.
In reaction, a brand new type of non secular existence emerged: the mendicant friars. Not like priests who withdrew from extraordinary existence, mendicants wired a lifetime of poverty, spent in commute from the city to the city to evangelise and assist the deficient. They’d beg for alms alongside the best way to supply for their very own wishes.
The primary mendicant orders, just like the Franciscans and Dominicans, won papal approval within the early thirteenth century. Others had been arranged later.
A couple of many years later, a number of hermits dwelling within the Italian area of Tuscany made up our minds to sign up for in combination to shape a brand new mendicant order. They selected to apply the Rule of St. Augustine beneath one awesome normal; Pope Blameless IV licensed the brand new order because the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine in 1244. Later, in 1254, Pope Alexander IV integrated different teams of hermits within the order, referred to as the Grand Union.
A Fifteenth-century Gothic aid of St. Augustine surrounded by way of priests in Venice, Italy.
Giovanni Dall’Orto by way of Wikimedia Commons
The brand new order grew and sooner or later expanded throughout Western Europe, turning into desirous about preaching and different forms of pastoral paintings in numerous nations.
Early missionaries to fashionable occasions
As Eu nations started to discover the New Global, missionary clergymen took their position on ships despatched from Catholic nations, like Spain and Portugal.
Augustinians had been amongst those early missionaries, briefly setting up themselves in Latin The united states, a number of nations in Africa and portions of Southeast Asia and Oceania, arriving within the Philippines within the sixteenth century.
There, they now not simplest ministered to the Eu crews and colonists, however in addition they evangelized – preached the Christian gospel – to the local population of the rustic.
Augustinian missionaries began the method of putting in Catholic parishes and, sooner or later, new dioceses. In time, they based and taught in seminaries to coach native-born males who sought after to sign up for their order.
It wasn’t till the tip of the 18th century that Augustinian friars arrived in america. In spite of many struggles and setbacks within the nineteenth century, they established Villanova College in Pennsylvania and different ministries in New York and Massachusetts. Apart from for 2 Seventeenth-century missionaries, Augustinian friars didn’t arrive in Canada till the twentieth century, once they had been despatched from the German province of the order to flee monetary drive from the industrial despair of the Twenties and political drive from the Nazis.
Pope Francis meets with individuals of the Order of Augustinian Remembers on the Vatican on Oct. 20, 2016.
L’Osservatore Romano/Pool Picture by way of AP
Nowadays, there are some 2,800 Augustinian friars in virtually 50 nations international. They function pastors, academics and bishops, and feature based colleges, schools and universities on virtually each continent. They’re additionally lively in selling social justice in lots of puts – as an example, in North The united states and Australasia, comprising Australia and portions of South Asia.
In response to his years as a missionary and as provincial of all the order international, Leo XIV attracts at the wealthy interpersonal custom of the Order of St. Augustine. I imagine his hold forth might be one marked by way of his experiential consciousness of Catholicism as a in fact world faith, and his deep worry for the struggling of the marginalized and the ones overwhelmed by way of political and financial injustice.
