Freedom and authority in the Catholic Church: Pope Leo XIV's ecclesiological manifesto — housed in the library of Sydney University - ABC Religion & Ethics

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

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.