World number one tennis pro Yannick Sinner met world number one tennis fan Pope Leo XIV last week with his parents. The pope, newly garbed in a white soutane, joked with Sinner and quipped, “They’d let me play at Wimbledon,” alluding to the all-white dress code on the grass courts.
That relaxed and genial good humour is typical of the man he knows, Fr David Austin OSA told The Catholic Weekly.
Fr Austin, a former Prior Provincial of the local Augustinians, met Fr Robert Prevost OSA when the now-pope was the Prior General, or the world head of the order, in Australia during a provincial chapter in 2002. He met him again on numerous other occasions, including a province visitation by Fr Prevost in 2005 and World Youth Day in 2008.
They have kept in touch from time to time ever since, and soon after Pope Francis’ death the then-cardinal Prevost responded to Fr Austin’s text message of condolence.
In describing the new pontiff, Fr Austin, now prior of the Augustinian Community in St Clair in western Sydney and associate pastor of Holy Spirit parish highlighted a few qualities.
He is a “compassionate listener,” he began.
“He’s a quiet man, but a very warm and very attentive to everybody that crosses his path. He’s really quite extraordinary in that sense. He’s a very genuine, down-to-earth man who gives full attention to every individual person, and he has a great sense of humour as well.”
But Pope Leo is also a talented administrator. “He does take hard decisions. He takes his time, listens very carefully to all the points of view, but he will make hard decisions if that’s what’s required.”
He has a very orderly mind. As an undergraduate at Villanova University, Robert Prevost studied mathematics and later he taught at a high school in Chicago. His background in mathematics probably helped him to have a systematic approach to problem solving.
Finally, with a doctorate in canon law, the new pope has a “strong and broad understanding of the church”, said Fr Austin.
“When I was in the seminary, canon law was in a state of flux. But I’ve discovered over the years, as a priest and as an administrator that the law can be your best friend in terms of protecting people. It would certainly have given him a broad view of the church and how it functions.”
Above all, Leo is a man of “serene prayer.” The destination of his first trip outside the Vatican after his election was to the shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, on the outskirts of Rome, and to the Augustinian community there.
Fr Austin highlighted his deep commitment to Augustinian spirituality. Among his first words from the balcony of the central loggia of St Peter’s was a phrase drawn from St Augustine: “With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.”
“That’s a marvellous statement of ecclesiology,” says Fr Austin. “It’s affirming that the church is fundamentally the people of God, and we’re all people, equal by our baptism, but then the bishop is called to serve the body of Christ, to serve the people of God.” It also expresses the Augustinian ideal of “community, friendship, humility and interiority.”