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. 

EDWARD PENTIN

SEP 15, 2025

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.

More: https://open.substack.com/pub/edwardpentin/p/professor-rist-st-augustine-would?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web