President Trump's denunciations notwithstanding, Pope Leo today is in Algeria and has availed himself of this opportunity to visit Annaba, the site of the ancient Roman North African port city of Hippo, once the see of the great Father and Doctor of the Church Saint Augustine (354-430), to whom the Latin Church in general and Pope Leo's religious order in particular are so indebted. Algeria is the first stop in a four-nation African tour. This 10-day trip will also take him to Cameroun, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea, countries with significant Catholic populations.
Algeria is, on the other hand, an overwhelmingly Muslim country; but the Pope's visit there includes celebrating Mass today in Annaba's 19th-century French colonial Basilica of Saint Augustine, which overlooks the site of ancient Hippo and what are presumed to be the remains of Saint Augustine's actual original basilica. (In 1842, a piece of the relic of Saint Augustine's right arm was brought from Saint Augustine's burial place in Pavia, Italy, and inserted into the arm of a marble statue of Saint Augustine in the modern basilica.)
By beginning his journey with a day-long visit to the ancient site of Hippo, where Saint Augustine lived in community, preached, and wrote, Pope Leo is highlighting his own debt to Saint Augustine, as an Augustinian friar rooting his papacy in Augustine's vision of the unity of the Church. It will be remembered that on the day of his election last year, Pope Leo described himself as a "son of St. Augustine," and he quoted the ancient North-African saint who famously said, "With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop." The Pope's Augustinianism is evident with his frequently quoting of Augustine in his addresses.
Saint Augustine also wrote a Rule, which has historically been adopted and adapted as a basis for the common life of many Catholic religious communities. Augustine had created his first quasi-religious community in his hometown of Tagaste (Souk Ahras, Algeria) in 388, only a year after his baptism. He did the same in Hippo in 391 after his relocation there as a presbyter, and then a few years later, after being ordained bishop, he set up a similar community for fellow clergy in his house. There, around 397, he wrote the Rule that bears his name. The text, reflecting some of the earliest experiences of cenobitic religious life in the Latin Church, is relatively short, biblically based, and inspired by Luke's image of the Jerusalem community in Acts. Its first precept, therefore is live together in harmony, being of one mind and one heart on the way to God (cf. Psalm 68:7; Acts 4:32). The Rule emphasizes a simple and common life. The simpler a way of life, the better it is suited to servants of God. And the degree to which you are concerned for the interests of the community rather than for your own, is the criterion by which you can judge how much progress you have made.
Augustine is rightly known as the Doctor gratiae ("Doctor of Grace"), because of his emphasis on our fundamental need for God's gratuitous grace - in opposition to the heresy of Pelagius. He could also be called a Doctor of Unity because of his tireless advocacy of the unity of the Church (and the objectivity of the sacraments) against the schismatic African Donatist church. This aspect of Augustine's pastoral ministry particularly resonates with the challenges facing this Augustinian Pope in today's politically polarized and fractured Church and world, in which the Gospel is increasingly overshadowed and disfigured by partisan identifications.
We entreat you, brothers, Augustine implores us as he did his contemporaries, as earnestly as we are able, to have charity, not only for one another, but also for those who are outside the Church. Of these some are still pagans, who have not yet made an act of faith in Christ. Others are separated, insofar as they are joined with us in professing faith in Christ, our head, but are yet divided from the unity of his body. My friends, we must grieve over these as over our brothers; and they will only cease to be so when they no longer say our Father. (Commentary on Psalm 32, 29).
Celebrating a Votive Mass of Saint Augustine in the Augustinian Basilica at Annaba today, preaching in French on Acts' account of the Jerusalem apostolic community and the Gospel's story of Nicodemus, the Pope said: "We can be born anew from above by the grace of God. We should do so then according to his loving will which desires to renew humanity by calling us to a communion of life that begins with faith." We quoted Saint Augustines's famous prayer, Give what you command, Lord, and command what you will, to highlight how Christ gives us the strength to renew our lives completely, no matter how weighed down we are. Referencing the Jerusalem apostolic community, he spoke of "the lifestyle that characterizes humanity when it has been renewed by the Holy Spirit." Recalling that there, "Saint Augustine loved his flock fervently seeking the truth and serving Christ with ardent faith," he invited his hearers today to "be heirs to this tradition."
Photo: Annaba's Basilica of Saint Augustine viewed from the ruins of Hippo.
Quotations from Augustine's Rule are from The Rule of Saint Augustine, tr. Raymond Canning, OSA (Doubleday Image, 1986).
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