Prior of the Augustinians: the cardinals saw in Leo XIV a balanced, prudent and sensible person

When it was the prefect of Dicastery for the bishops, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost used to walk through the Burgo neighborhood, near the Plaza de San Pedro. In Rome, he lived in a simple road apartment by Porta Angelicauntil less than two months ago he could move to another block of housing for senior vatican positions in the Uffizio saint building.

However, almost every day he preferred to celebrate Mass with the Augustinians residents in Rome, his former religious community, whom his family considers. With them he used to have lunch, if he had no other job commitments. A custom that repeated as Pope Leo XIV. This Tuesday he appeared by surprise in which today is his house, located to the left of the Bernini colonnate that surrounds the Plaza de San Pedro, and where they are clear why the cardinals chose it.

“Do not speak to speak “

“They have seen a balanced, prudent and sensible person: who speaks when he has to speak and that (he has) a thought is deep. That is, he does not speak to speak, but before, because he is an intelligent person, he has thought things and communicates them when he believes that his communication, what he is going to say, is important and can say something new or can continue a speech to give strength,” explains Pi Press in statements. The Order of San Agustín.

It was this Spanish priest who accompanied Saturday to Genazzanoa small town 60 kilometers from Rome, to visit the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Good Council of which Leo XIV is very devout. And with him he celebrated the next day a mass in the Vatican Grutas, on the altar located next to the tomb of the apostle Peter.

They met at the Santa Mónica International College, when both were young seminarians, shortly before Premost was ordered priest in 1982. Then Fr. Moral studied Sacred Scripture and Father Prevost formed in Canon Law at the Pontifical University of Santo Tomás de Aquino, known as El Angelicum.

The Moral Moral defines it as a “affectionate” person, who “respects you a lot”, but, above all, “very normal.”

“He is a good partner. With him we can talk, we can discern, we can reflect, we can take a pizza together. It is very normal. And we need people who do not get angry, who are not aggressive, who know how to understand the things of life,” he explains during the interview conducted in the same office in which Fr. Prevost sat from 2007 to 2013, during his second mandate as a prior general of the Augustinians.

A Pope who uses WhatsApp and who likes to drive

So normal, that usesapp and likes to drive. “Once he traveled by car from here to Holland for a chapter of the Order. He drove the entire journey,” he says as anecdote, after also highlighting his enormous capacity for sacrifice and his deep intellectual preparation.

On the second floor of this building, as soon as the stairs are uploaded, there is a smiling portrait of Pope Leo XIV that records his government for 13 years of this order composed of 2,400 religious and present in more than 40 countries.

On the roof he was playing tennis on a court overlooking the emblematic dome, just before locking himself in the Sistine chapel for the conclave on May 7. “He told me that he had done very well,” says Fr. Moral.

As Fr. Moral, Prevost was also 12 years in front of the Augustinians worldwide, which has forged a universal vision of the Church.

“We are still very Latin in the Church, very clericized, as Pope Francis told you (…) and at the same time very westernized, very Latinized,” he says after also verifying the great government experience he has acquired being a general prior, but before the provincial superior of the Augustinians in Chicago (United States).

“Unfair” accusations

On the other hand, Fr. Moral also valued that Pope Leo XIV does not usually give excessive weight to criticism and cited as an example the journalistic information that during the conclave accused the Cardinal Prevost of having covered up cases of sexual abuse committed by two priests in 2004 of the Peruvian diocese of Chiclayo.

However, the Peruvian episcopal headquarters has defended at all times the management of then Bishop Robert Prevost.

Father Moral said that in the media those negative things “came out that even assured that today Pope had filed the case. “They are very unfair things,” he said, referring to journalistic accusations.

“Why do you say in the title that is filed?” He questioned. “That means that he has not looked at it,” he said in reference to the canonical research that remains in progress to clarify the accusations of abuse. “Let’s not say lies, because we are deceiving people, which is the evil of this world, many times to fool ourselves,” said Father Moral.

San Agustín, great ally of his pontificate

The Pontiff Leo XIV did not hesitate to declare himself “son of San Agustín” from the balcony of the Basilica of San Pedro. A firm declaration of intentions.

“San Agustín was a shepherd, he didn’t want to be a bishop; then people acclaimed him, they made him bishop and he was always next to the people,” explains Fr. Moral.

One of the central axes of Augustinian thought, explained the prior general, is the sincere and shared search for truth. “The truth is not yours or mine, so that we can get to the truth and share that truth. None has the whole truth,” he says. This process of discernment, emphasizes, is vital “in interconfessional and interreligious relations” and will mark the Pontificate of Leo XIV.

“Saint Augustine is a man for whom the most important thing is communion. Our rule says: having a single heart and a single soul in God. That unity is fundamental,” he insists.

The Moral also values ​​that the Bishop of Hipona, who was born in the current Algeria in the fourth century, was the most cited author in the Second Vatican Council: “He was summoned 52 times, more than any other author. Then Santo Tomás de Aquinas comes, but quite a distance.”

Leo XIV likes to sing and the liturgy

Last Sunday, when the central balcony of the Basilica of San Pedro looked for the second time to pray the Regina Coelithe prayer that the Angelus replaces in Easter time, Leo XIV surprised the world because instead of reciting it, he decided to sing the Mariana prayer. Maybe to follow the council of San Agustín, “who says singing, pray twice.”

Father Moral reveals that he not only “likes to sing” but is “a very liturgical man.” “Celebrates the Eucharist with pleasure and respect, without pomposity, but with depth,” he says.