At 7.13 pm on 8 May, Cardinal Protodeacon Dominique Mamberti stepped onto the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to announce to the world that there was a new pope, Robert Francis Prevost, Leo XIV.
Three days later, on the afternoon of 11 May, Samuel Pruvot, a senior reporter for the French weekly Famille chrétienne and Marc Leboucher, a French publisher, had sent the text of a 160-page biography to a printer. By 14 May, 10,000 copies had been delivered to bookshops in France.
It was an extraordinary effort, the fruit of a highly disciplined team of journalists who had been preparing for the papal election for weeks. And now it is available in an English translation as Leo XIV – An Apostle of Peace, published by ATF Press, an Australia-based independent book seller. “Many people have asked me if we used artificial intelligence” to produce the book so quickly, said Leboucher. “In fact, only human intelligence worked on this story.”
According to Radio Notre Dame, Leboucher was getting some deep background from a cardinal friend in Santa Marta on the day after the election when the door opened and Pope Leo appeared. The journalist explained that he was busy writing his biography. The pope wished him good luck and whispered, ”I would like to know the meaning of the surname Prevost, look it up, it will interest me…”
The book was launched recently at North Harbour Parish in Manly Vale by Fr Peter Jones OSA, the Augustinian Prior Provincial in Australia. In fact, the new pope knows Australia well.
“The days following the election were days of humble, joyful gratitude among the Augustinians and with many in our ministries,” said Fr Jones in his remarks. “When he was Prior General of the Order, Robert Prevost had visited Australia on six separate occasions. His warmth, accessibility and ease of presence are deeply cherished among many of the laity associated with the Order’s ministries here.”
Fr Jones used the occasion to reflect upon the meaning of the election of “our Augustinian brother, someone so many of us knew and experienced personally.”
“His election was a shock, but this does not mean that it was unwelcome, or that there are misgivings. Instead, it was the shock that someone whom many of us know in a very immediate sense was now elected to such a prominent, universally significant position. In that moment, I felt the prayers of many were answered – that whatever outcome the election may have, it would be a good one.
“In the following days, I found myself reflecting on the Incarnation. Our direct experience of Pope Leo XIV, a person known to us, being called to a mission of unique prominence and for all emphasised the reality of what the Incarnation experience would have been for the disciples. In their post-Easter reality, they had a unique experience of the extraordinary breaking through the ordinary. This was now appreciated with a new poignancy and appreciation due to a very different yet analogous experience.
“Pope Leo XIV would be the first to issue a corrective here – his own sense of weakness, linked with Augustine’s own sense of brokenness, and with all of us coping with the reality of sin. We struggle, but we are carried by grace and the fact we journey together along the way.”
Obviously this quickie biography has its limitations, but many people are eager to know as much as they can as fast as they can about the new pope. As Fr Jones said, “More considered scholarly works lie in the future.”
