Professor Rist: St Augustine Would Have Been ‘Appalled’ at Recent Vatican Events

The distinguished Church expert on the 4th century saint discusses increasing concern over Pope Leo XIV’s governance following recent controversies.

St Aurelius Augustine of Hippo

Pope Leo XIV has won many plaudits for aspects of his Petrine Ministry so far — his Christ-centred preaching, personal kindness, and emphasis on peace and reconciliation to name a few.

But recent events at the Vatican have heightened concerns that Leo is also tolerating, and perhaps even condoning, elements of the previous pontificate that were particularly harmful to souls on account of the public scandal they caused.

On August 31, the Pope very publicly received Jesuit Fr James Martin, the highly controversial proponent of normalising homosexual relations within the Church who was shown much favour by Leo’s late Jesuit predecessor. After Fr Martin’s meeting with Leo, the American priest broke with the rule not to publicly disclose the contents of a private papal audience and shared his very positive view of the meeting, saying the Holy Father was “serene, joyful, and encouraging.”

The Holy See Press Office, which advertised the meeting in its daily press release, offered no correction or affirmation of Church teaching in response, leaving many to understandably conclude that Leo was indeed fully supportive of Fr Martin’s agenda.

A few days earlier, Leo XIV had quietly met Dominican Sister Lucia Caram, a dissenting religious who believes a woman should be free to have an abortion, and that same-sex couples should be “married” in church. She has also expressed doubts about Mary’s perpetual virginity. Although the meeting was not advertised, a photograph showing them warmly greeting one another found its way onto social media. Again, no statement of correction or willingness to mitigate the scandal was forthcoming from the Vatican.

These audiences occurred at around the same time that a group of over 1,000 LGBT Catholic activists were allowed to enter St. Peter's Basilica as part of a Jubilee pilgrimage wearing crosses with rainbow colours, holding hands, and displaying offensive slogans on their clothes. The Vatican knew the group were going to visit the basilica as they had advertised their pilgrimage in the jubilee calendar months earlier. After the scandal was visible across the internet, the Holy See was again silent.

Then last week it emerged that Pope Leo had named, as the new president of the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts, a “feminist queer” art historian who has curated exhibitions with homosexual themes, nudity, and “sadomasochism and fetishism.”

Many have found it surprising that Leo would allow these incidents to pass without comment or correction given the Holy Father’s Augustinian formation and therefore, presumably, his clear understanding of moral theology.

So what would St Aurelius Augustine of Hippo have made of them?

To find out I asked Professor John Rist, widely regarded as one of the Church’s finest scholars of St Augustine and the fathers of the early Church. Rist, who has held the Dominican Father Kurt Pritzl Chair in Philosophy at The Catholic University of America and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is author of Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized, a major work published in 2008 that sought to provide a detailed and accurate account of the character and effects of Augustine’s thought as a whole.

Rist shared these comments via email on Sept. 12.

Professor Rist, we are only four months into Leo XIV’s pontificate, but concerns are nevertheless growing that the Holy Father won’t be tackling problems that came to the surface during Francis’ pontificate, but instead possibly ignoring or even encouraging them in the interests of “continuity” and a kind of “false irenicism.” What is your view on these apprehensions? Could this be due to a reluctance to confront evil, or perhaps even some noble approach we are unaware of?

During the now concluded papacy of Jorge Bergoglio, the pope appeared to be denying much Catholic teaching, both in his ambiguous words and in his deeds, over a number of issues, not least concerning sexual morality where he even rejected the dominical command [a command given directly by Christ] about the impossibility of re-marriage after divorce during the lifetime of a spouse.

But since Bergoglio’s acts were never challenged by the bishops (except in a very few individual cases), the problem remains unresolved. So what is to happen to Bergoglianism now? Is it the job of Prevost to normalize Bergoglianism or to correct it? If it is not corrected, of course, it will persist, whether in this new pontificate or in some pontificate further into the future.

In view of the Church now having her first ever pope from the Order of St Augustine (OSA), which recognises the 5th century saint as its father, teacher, and spiritual guide, what guidance did St Augustine give to Church leaders in such a situation?

Bergoglio left a College of Cardinals of which about two thirds were his own appointees, many of them his strong supporters, others indifferent. It was therefore likely that someone acceptable to Bergoglianism would be elected, but to what extent a real Bergoglian? Eventually Cardinal Robert Prevost, an Augustinian, was elected, so it is worth asking what Augustine himself would think of a number of Prevost’s recent actions and inactions, especially in the area of sexual morality, where, it seems, the first test of the future of Bergoglianism is being set.

Most of these recent events concern homosexuality but one, an apparently friendly audience with a Dominican Sister Caram, ranged more widely, since she is not only a strong advocate of same-sex “marriage” in the Catholic Church but also of abortion. And we know what Augustine would think of such beliefs: he would know that from the very beginning Christians had condemned abortion unreservedly and he would have agreed. So he would be surprised and indeed appalled to see a member of an Augustinian Order — who widely quotes the Master's own writings — appear tolerant of such wholly un-Catholic behaviour. He would immediately wonder why Prevost did not tell the deviant Sister to change her views right now if she wished to remain a Dominican Sister in good standing.

St Augustine was clear about the mortal sin of sodomy in both Confessions and the City of God, describing it in the former as abominable, against nature, and deserving punishment whenever and wherever such acts are committed. He also said that if all nations practiced sodomy they would all be guilty under God’s law. What would he therefore have made of an Augustinian pope’s apparent tolerance of those promoting the normalisation of such behaviour?

Augustine had no time whatsoever for homosexual behaviour, common though it was in the world in which he lived. He condemns the sin of Sodom time and again as an abomination, so he would obviously be astonished and disgusted to see an Augustinian apparently condoning, if not actually approving it.

For that is precisely what has happened. Apart from Sister Caram, the Pope received in a very publicized audience Fr James Martin, the most determined of all the Jesuit advocates of Church approval of homosexual acts. That was to be followed by a ‘Gay Mass’ in the Jesuit Church of the Gesu in Rome, with the vice-president of the Italian bishops’ conference presiding. Then there were 1000 or so homosexuals who processed across Rome to St Peter's where they entered through the “Holy” Door with LGBT flags flying, slogans in favour of homosexuality on full display, with one man, holding his gay partner's hand dressed in a T-Shirt emblazoned with ‘F*ck the Rules’ —meaning that the Church could do without any moral rules, and certainly with none condemning homosexual acts.

So far as I can see, only one traditional bishop has condemned this circus, while the servile idea has been floated that Prevost should call out “the Vatican” for allowing the aforesaid gay antics. As the Vatican is, in fact, merely the creature of the Pope himself, it is hard not to draw the conclusion that Prevost OSA approved of the whole gay circus himself. That said, Augustine would surely regard the whole crew, including the Pope himself, with utter contempt, saying — out loud — that they had betrayed Christ by their actions.

He would certainly also recognize that their “progressive” attitudes are often little more than a fig-leaf covering an abject fear of unpopularity in the contemporary world, and especially among the Western elites whom they so long to flatter. He might even think of a remark of his near-contemporary St Basil, who, when asked by a Roman official to approve a piece of wickedness, refused to do so. This much surprised the official who then said, “Basil, I cannot understand this; I have asked several bishops to do what I asked you, and they all agreed.” To which Basil replied: “You have not yet met a real bishop.”

Another aspect that has been pointed out is that it is one thing for these incidents to take place, but another for the Pope and the Vatican to be silent about them afterwards. There has been no word of public correction or assertion of Church teaching since these episodes occurred. Did St Augustine have anything to say about the dangers of such an omission?

A reincarnated Augustine would certainly recognize in this abject failure of an Augustinian pope — not least one who regularly cites his own writings — to condemn acts manifestly in complete contrast with traditional Christian moral teaching, and accompanied by the servility (the word goes back to Bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer who at Vatican I strongly rejected the proposed definition of infallibility) of the bishops who appear to be willing to tolerate almost anything a pope says or does.

If Augustine were asked why this has all happened, he would almost certainly say that many bishops, and the more recent popes, have forgotten the doctrine of original sin. And that if they have not forgotten it, they are deliberately ignoring the fact that fallen human nature should not be “accompanied,” i.e. condoned, but firmly and unambiguously corrected, even in matters of sexual morality, the dangers of which were very well known to himself.

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Some Key Texts of St Augustine on “Foul Offences Which Be Against Human Nature” (Homosexual Acts):

1. In Confessions, Book 3, Chapter 8:

“Can it at any time or place be unjust to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind; and his neighbour as himself? Therefore are those foul offences which be against nature are to be everywhere and at all times detested and punished, such as were those of the men of Sodom, which should all nations commit, they should all stand guilty of the same crime, by the law of God, which hath not so made men that they should so abuse one another. For even that intercourse which should be between God and us is violated when that same nature, of which He is Author, is polluted by the perversity of lust.”

2. In Book 16, Chapter 30 of the City of God:

Here St Augustine addresses the “sin of Sodom”, explaining that the destruction of Sodom by fire was both a punishment for its widespread immorality — especially sodomy — and a warning about divine judgment to come. He interprets the angels forbidding Lot’s family to look back as a lesson not to return in desire to a sinful life once one has been saved by grace. Lot’s wife, who became a pillar of salt after looking back, serves as a warning example for others.

The full excerpt:

“After this promise Lot was delivered out of Sodom, and a fiery rain from heaven turned into ashes that whole region of the impious city, where custom had made sodomy as prevalent as laws have elsewhere made other kinds of wickedness. But this punishment of theirs was a specimen of the divine judgment to come. For what is meant by the angels forbidding those who were delivered to look back, but that we are not to look back in heart to the old life which, being regenerated through grace, we have put off, if we think to escape the last judgment? Lot's wife, indeed, when she looked back, remained, and, being turned into salt, furnished to believing men a condiment by which to savour somewhat the warning to be drawn from that example.”