Pope Francis's legacy and Pope Leo's future, reflected in the inclusive frescoes of the Sistine Chapel - ABC Religion & Ethics
Early this morning, white smoke from the Sistine Chapel signalled to the world Cardinal Robert Prevost's election as Pope Leo XIV. As an Augustinian friar, Prevost spent decades in Peru working with poor communities. His dual citizenship status gives him the special honour of simultaneously being the first American and the first Peruvian pope.
The college of cardinals who elected him represent dioceses from Asia, Oceania, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas — a truly global conclave. Such global representation and the expedience of the decision to appoint this uniquely global citizen sends the world a subtle message: that Pope Francis's legacy will live on .
The Arch of Constantine with the Roman Colosseum in the background, located east of the Roman Forum. (Photo by VW Pics / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
A significant aspect of this legacy was Francis's promotion of inter-faith dialogue and an inclusive vision of the Church — seeking the inspiration of the Holy Spirit from the peripheries. Many might be surprised to learn that Michelangelo's frescoes, under which the cardinals made their decision, contain similar themes, reflecting central tenets of Renaissance theology.
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508–1512), St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. (Photo by Prisma / UIG / Getty Images)
The dizzying scale and complexity of Michelangelo's composition is awe inspiring, and perhaps, a little overwhelming. His elaborate painted architecture was a groundbreaking masterpiece in its own right. Some have compared its structure with Rome's triumphal Arch of Constantine, through which conquering generals would lead their legions, bestowing glory on their return from successful military campaigns. Others have described it as an ancient temenos , a designated space where priests would watch for auspices in antiquity.
Perched on stone thrones at the precipice of his painted architecture, and flanking his central scenes on all sides, are a collection of towering figures testifying to Michelangelo's spectacular mastery of gestural variance — these are the Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls.
Erythraean Sibyl on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508–1512), by Michelangelo. (Photo by Fine Art Images / Heritage Images via Getty Images).
Mirroring the cosmopolitan composition of the current college of cardinals, Michelangelo's Sistine sibyls include the Libyan and Erythraean from Africa, the Delphic (Greek) and Cumaean (Roman) from Europe, and the Persian (Iranian) from West Asia.
During the Italian Renaissance, sibyls were often understood to represent the three continents of the known world at the time: Africa, Asia and Europe. Michelangelo's tutor, Ghirlandaio, was among the first to include depictions of sibyls in a Catholic chapel in the 1480s, in Santa Trinita in Florence. At the same time, the clergy of Siena Cathedral were introduced to a prominent depiction of Hermes Trismegistus accompanied by ten sibyls on the mosaic pavement, which Michelangelo would have seen when he was visiting the duomo ahead of his commission for the Piccolomini altar. Aby Warburg called these appearances a 'secular incursion' in Catholic art, which reflected a contemporary exploration of interfaith dialogue and promotion of religious universalism during the Renaissance.
The Delphic Sibyl on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. (Photo by Fine Art Images / Heritage Images / Getty Images)
Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464), cardinal, theologian and Vicar of Rome, provides a great example of this. He published On the Peace of Faith in 1453, the year Constantinople fell to the Ottomans. In it he described the universality of religion and discussed the need for interfaith dialogue:
You are all in agreement, therefore, that there is one sole worship of God, which all of you presuppose in your various rites … It would be possible, through the experience of a few wise men who are well acquainted with all the diverse practices which are observed in religions across the world, to find a unique and propitious concordance.
Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499), a priest, translator, musician, astrologer, doctor and prominent Renaissance theologian-philosopher, spoke of the universal religious impulse in his On the Christian Religion : 'The human soul, by its very nature, is inclined toward the divine, and this inclination is the root of all religion.' Returning to this theme again, later in his work, Ficino wrote: 'All religions, though they differ in their rites and names, are directed toward the one God, who is the source of all truth.'
Alongside themes of interfaith dialogue, Renaissance theology involved investigations of doctrinal concordia (harmony), exploring and restoring divine truths contained in disparate religious and philosophical traditions. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), who described himself as the 'Count of Concord', introduced themes of religious universalism in his Oration on the Dignity of Man , and his 900 conclusions contained a detailed exploration of different doctrines in search of concordia . Pico's claims even extended to a kind of divinisation of the human condition, enabled only by a proper understanding of universally concordant divine wisdom.
Vault of the Sassetti Chapel (1482–1486) in the Church of Santa Trinita, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Florence, Italy. The vault of the chapel is painted with four Sibyls — Cumaean, Eritrean, Agrippine and Cimmerian — placed on a starry blue background, between ribs decorated with garlands of flowers and fruits. (Antonio Quattrone / Archivio Antonio Quattrone / Mondadori Portfoliovia Getty Images)
Pope Innocent VIII invoked canon law when he outlawed thirteen of Pico's claims as heretical, punishing him with excommunication. But this was overturned by Innocent's successor, Pope Alexander VI, who issued a papal brief in 1493 — a formal document with legal force — absolving Pico and nullifying his excommunication. This pendulum swing, expanding and contracting boundaries of Catholic orthodoxy, was a hallmark of Renaissance theological inquiry, reaching peak doctrinal flexibility around the time Michelangelo completed his Sistine ceiling commission. Many have proposed that Michelangelo's theological advisor on the program was Egidio da Viterbo, prior general of the Augustinian order at the time — a position that the new pope has likewise occupied.
Marsilio Ficino had an enduring interest in a universal ancient theology he called the prisca theologia , which consisted entirely of wisdom derived from pre-Christian philosophers and seers, including the sibyls that appear in Michelangelo's frescoes. Ficino viewed the metaphysics he found there as a form of natural theology — divine truth derived from reason — and he felt that both natural philosophy (science) and divine theology (religion) could be explained and contained by Platonic metaphysics.
Ficino wanted to inspire his generation to rekindle the combined practice of philosophy and theology:
Therefore, the prophets of the Hebrew and Essenes were inclined to wisdom and priesthood simultaneously. The philosophers among the Persians, because they were in charge of sacred rites, were called Magi [which is to say, priests]. The Indians consulted the Brahmins on both the nature of things and the purification of souls. Among the Egyptians, mathematicians and metaphysicians took up the priesthood and the kingship. Among the Ethiopians, the gymnosophists were at once teachers of philosophy and prelates of religion. The same tradition prevailed in Greece under Orpheus and Pythagoras.
Ficino sought to unite two groups of Renaissance thinkers who would often fail to engage with each other: 'I therefore exhort and implore all philosophers to reach out and embrace religion firmly, and all priests to devote themselves diligently to the study of legitimate wisdom.'
Under the belief that natural philosophers would be convinced by the arguments of Plato, he hoped to redirect them away from the shadows of things and toward the underlying divine truth of incorporeality. Meanwhile, he was encouraging the priesthood to embrace the legitimate wisdom of philosophy, thus dissolving the boundary between theology and philosophy.
Detail from the painting of Michelangelo that adorns the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. (Photo by Fotopress / Getty Images)
Prominent depictions of pagan sibyls in communion with Hebrew prophets are unique to the Italian High Renaissance and reflect a chapter in the history of religion that is not well understood.
On the ceiling of the chapel where the cardinals elected Pope Leo XIV is Michelangelo's kaleidoscopic hieroglyphic, telling us about a time when Pope Francis's vision of the inclusive and synodal church would have seemed mainstream. A story about a time when universal concordia reigned supreme — a story told by a generation who believed in the arrival of a Golden Age, when the truth of unity would outlast the deceit of division.
David Jackson has a postgraduate degree in Italian Studies from the University of Sydney, and is writing his thesis on the frescoes of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Daniel Canaris is Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Sydney. He is an intellectual historian who specialises in intercultural exchange in the early modern period.
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Freedom and authority in the Catholic Church: Pope Leo XIV's ecclesiological manifesto — housed in the library of Sydney University - ABC Religion & Ethics
In 2002, a scholar at the University of Sydney made a request to Fisher Library for what then seemed to be an unremarkable dissertation. Entitled 'The Office and Authority of the Local Prior in the Order of Saint Augustine', the dissertation was published in 1987 as part of a doctoral degree in Canon Law at the Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. In the September of the year before the request, its author, Fr Robert Francis Prevost, an Augustinian friar hailing from Chicago, had been elected Prior General of his order after years of pastoral work in Peru, so his views on the order's governance would have been topical. Fisher Library had the foresight to procure a copy that has now resurfaced after its author's unexpected election as Pope Leo XIV. This precious volume — now in the Rare Books and Special Collections of Fisher Library — is the only copy of the thesis located in the southern hemisphere and one of only a handful of copies worldwide. Unlike previous popes, whose elections were preceded by widely diffused writings, this thesis is the only significant work published by the pope prior to his election. Thus, it gives us crucial insights into the pope's vision for the church and its leadership. Meeting the challenges of the modern age From its opening pages, this thesis explores the challenges that modernity poses for the Catholic Church. While Prevost recognises that the church cannot embrace all modern values, he is not antagonistic towards them. As the world has changed, so the church must adapt. Old notions of authority and obedience are no longer sustainable in an age defined by human subjectivity — which he terms 'personalism' in a tacit nod to the ethics of Pope John Paul II: Values have changed, there is a new understanding of the dignity of each person, and a new age of personalism has been born. Obedience as blind submission to the will of another is no longer accepted, and authority at all levels has been challenged, with claims that promote the values of human liberty and democracy but do not accept or understand the Church's standpoint on authority and obedience. As Prevost reminds us, this emphasis on freedom resonates with the opposition to authority expressed in the gospels. But for there to be true freedom, there must be authority, and this authority is established by Jesus himself: Authority is placed at the service of the good of others, this is true; not, however, because and in as much as it is derived from the community, but because it is received from above for governing and judging, originating in a positive intervention on the part of the Lord. From this premise, the future pope introduces the main theme of his thesis — namely, an exploration of the juridical authority and responsibilities of the local prior in the Augustinian order following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Every page is imbued with the spirit of the Council, and indeed the three apostolic duties ( munera ) described in Lumen Gentium , the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church produced by the Council, provide the structural glue for how Prevost articulates the responsibilities of the local prior: munus docendi (duty to teach), munus sanctificandi (the duty to sanctify) and munus regendi (the duty to govern). A theology of listening For Robert Prevost, the local prior is one of the most important authority figures in the Augustinian order despite his limited jurisdiction. This is because the decisions of the local prior have the greatest consequences for how Augustinian life is concretely experienced in actual communities. To a certain degree, Prevost's emphasis on local leadership anticipates Pope Francis's vision of a synodal church that listens to the voices of peripheries. Indeed, some of Pope Leo's first pronouncements after his election reflect his desire to build on Pope Francis's vision. But Prevost's thesis reveals that these statements were made not out of political convenience, but are the result of decades of sustained theological reflection. The source of the future pope's 'theology of listening' is Augustine's understanding of authentic Christian community: Theologically, an Augustinian community is an attempt to reconstitute the conditions of the first Christian community as described in the Acts of the Apostles and as adopted by Augustine in his Rule. In this community, authority is service, and that service is rendered within a context of listening to what the Spirit is saying in His people so that His projects can be carried out freely and willingly. The Prior then is called to listen, so that together they can discern and implement what the Spirit inspires. This theology of listening as the Spirit welds the group into community provides a framework within which the Chapter's authority can be understood. As progressive this might sound, Prevost counterintuitively situates this theology of listening within an institutional understanding of power. On numerous occasions, he reiterates the point that a superior's authority is 'is received from God' through the ministry of the church. He relates that this power, following the Jesuit theologian Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), had been previously understood as a potestas dominativa (dominative power) that was grounded on natural law — like parental authority over children. According to this view, the local prior's power does not derive from Christ but is 'born radically from the will of those who profess the vow of obedience and who donate themselves to the religious institute with the promise and obligation to obey according to its Rule'. Paradoxically, the contractual account of authority used in the Tridentine Church might seem to us more in tune with secular modern individualism, but the future pope rejects this, arguing instead that a local prior's authority is jurisdictional ( potestas iurisdictionis ) and is ultimately derived from the church, which approves the foundation of a religious institute and its constitutions. He concludes, again following Lumen Gentium , that this authority must be considered a divinely bestowed gift or charism that is ministered through the church. This rare copy of Robert Prevost's doctoral dissertation is the only copy of the thesis located in the southern hemisphere and one of only a handful of copies worldwide. (Credit: University of Sydney Library, RB 5487.2) Thus, Fr Robert Prevost's emphasis on grassroots leadership, while reminiscent of Pope Francis's insistence on 'a shepherd that smells of his flock', is founded on a much more institutional ecclesiology. This also transpires in Prevost's meticulous reflections on the procedures and constitutional norms which the local prior must follow in governance. If the vision articulated in Prevost's doctoral thesis plays out, his pontificate will most likely be more predictable and steadier than that of Pope Francis, even as it builds on his predecessor's legacy. I suspect that this is precisely what the cardinal electors wanted when they voted for him. Daniel Canaris is Lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of Sydney. He is an intellectual historian who specialises in intercultural exchange in the early modern period.
