New book by Brian Heffernan: Leo XIV An Augustinian Life in Context                  

What forms a Pope?

Who is Robert Francis Prevost, the until-recently relatively unknown Augustinian who now leads nearly 1.5 billion Catholics as Pope Leo XIV? A new concise biography by Brian Heffernan, an expert on Augustinian history, looks at the successive contexts in which Prevost lived and worked before his election as pope: Chicago, Peru, Rome, and the Order of Saint Augustine, with which Prevost has been connected since his youth. 

In Leo XIV: An Augustinian Life in Context, Heffernan surveys the historical, economic and sociological environments in which Prevost has lived and worked, providing a rich, situated view of the new pope. The inclusion of rare Augustinian material plus his comprehensive understanding of the modern history of the Augustinian Order, allows the author to offer insights into the Augustinian charisms that have shaped his life and thinking. 

Whilst several books have appeared about Leo XIV since his election, many have either focused on the conclave and the pope’s first words, or considered the legacy of the previous incumbent’s pontificate. Heffernan’s approach zooms out to contextualise the influences on Prevost’s life and work and ponder whether his Augustinian consciousness may be a major thread running through his pontificate.

About the author
Dr Brian Heffernan holds a PhD from Maynooth University. As a historian of modern Catholicism, he has written extensively on the Augustinian Friars. He lives in Brussels and is a researcher at the Catholic universities of KU Leuven and UCLouvain in Belgium and an editor at DHGE – Louvain Dictionary of Church History.

Book available: https://www.messenger.ie/product/leo-xiv-an-augustinian-life-in-context/

Similar Posts

Join the Discussion

Keep the following in mind when writing a comment

  • Your comment must include your full name, and email. (email will not be published). You may be contacted by email, and it is possible you might be requested to supply your postal address to verify your identity.
  • Be respectful. Do not attack the writer. Take on the idea, not the messenger. Comments containing vulgarities, personalised insults, slanders or accusations shall be deleted.
  • Keep to the point. Deliberate digressions don't aid the discussion.
  • Including multiple links or coding in your comment will increase the chances of it being automati cally marked as spam.
  • Posts that are merely links to other sites or lengthy quotes may not be published.
  • Brevity. Like homilies keep you comments as short as possible; continued repetitions of a point over various threads will not be published.
  • The decision to publish or not publish a comment is made by the site editor. It will not be possible to reply individually to those whose comments are not published.