Catholic Religious Australia has welcomed the election of Pope Leo XIV and expressed its “joy in this moment of newness and opportunity as another chapter commences in the life of the Church”.
“We join with the whole people of God in celebrating the fruits of these days of prayerful discernment in Rome and committing ourselves to praying for and working with Pope Leo XIV as his pontificate unfolds”, said CRA president Br Gerard Brady CFC.
Many Australian Augustinians know Pope Leo personally, particularly from his time as the Order’s Prior General, during which he visited Australia four times.
On a visit during World Youth Day in Sydney in 2008, he celebrated Mass at Sydney’s Collaroy Beach with young people.
Immediate past CRA president Fr Peter Jones is the Prior Provincial of the Order of St Augustine, Australasian Province. Fr Jones has known Pope Leo since he lived in community with him as a student in the 1980s.
“The Augustinians are humbly grateful for the election of Pope Leo XIV and are confident he will continue to live as Pope as he has in religious life. He has always valued human dignity, relationships, dialogue, peace and bridge-building, and I am sure he will carry those values with him into his papacy,” Fr Jones said.
“It is significant that Pope Leo, like Francis, comes from a religious order, and it clearly shows that the cardinals in the conclave value religious life in the Church, and that they hold a great respect for the different charisms and spiritualities of religious institutes.”
CRA’s national executive Anne Walker said that in his first Urbi et Orbi address and Apostolic Blessing, Pope Leo “used the word tutti, all, many times to emphasise the importance of human solidarity, achieved through dialogue, encounter, and synodality”.
“CRA looks forward with joy-filled anticipation to the particular gifts that Pope Leo XIV brings, knowing he will be influenced by St Augustine and Augustinian spirituality with its emphasis on seeking God together in friendship and community and loving service of the Church as the Body of Christ.”
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Catholic Religious Australia celebrates Augustinian Pope, Leo XIV (CRA)
