Quelling the Restless Heart

Pope Leo XIV and the Augustinian “Restless Heart”

Through the ,now, more two millennia of Roman pontiffs, there are names that continue to resound through the centuries, think St. Peter, St. Gregory the Great, and St. John Paul the Great, and names that have silently fallen into oblivion, Agapetus II, for example doesn’t often surface in theological discussions! Of the, now, 267 successors to St. Peter, though, only a handful of Pontiffs stand out, not because of political maneuvering or institutional reform, but because of a deep interiority that shifts the spiritual tone of an entire era.

Standing on the precipice of a decisive moment in both the Church and the World, I believe Pope Leo XIV, while not yet enthroned, much less canonized, has the potentiality to be such a man. His first brief moments as Pontiff have already been theologically potent, particularly in his revival of Augustinian thought in a modern key. In engraving St. Augustine’s restless heart upon his papal crest, I believe, even in its infancy, Leo XIV’s papacy will call the Church to reimagine St. Augustine in the context of our present 21st-century spiritual dislocation.

Augustinian Origins

Few Christian apologists have approached the vulnerability with which St. Augustine of Hippo, the 4th-century bishop, theologian, and Doctor of the Church, laid bare his soul in his Confessions. With a line that now resounds across the ages he wrote: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”

More than a poetic flourish, the idea of the “restless heart” captures the whole of the human condition in a single sentence: a yearning which cannot be satiated by temporal goods, one which can only be quenched in the eternal. Augustine’s own restless heart, like each of ours, was plagued by distractions, compulsions, and false loves, yet, ultimately, becoming enraptured by the infinite love of God. Restlessness for Augustine was at once both a wound and a guide it was the soul’s hunger for truth, beauty, and goodness.

The Papacy in Crisis

Pope Leo XIV has ascended to the Chair of St. Peter during a time of deep cultural and ecclesial confusion. In an age where secularism has not only challenged traditional religious belief but made it seem irrelevant and the moral authority of the Church has been corrupted by ecclesial scandals and institutional inertia, the faithful are tired, disillusioned, and fragmented. The Church, moreover, the World, needs a leader to guide its restless heart back to the source and summit of the Church, Jesus, the Christ.

The World as we know it is marked by restlessness and has no clear path home. Pope Leo XIV, as head of the World’s largest Christian Church, now stands in the breach to quell the restlessness and bring peace to the Church and the World. In fact, his opening words as Pontiff, “Peace be with you,” I believe, will mark his Papacy; a papacy which must pull at the spiritual root of corruption and complacence and ease the cries of the faithful. Unlike his predecessors, Leo, must not engulf himself solely in doctrinal clarity or structural reform, he must, I believe turn the Church inward, both spiritually and theologically, and bring it to a state of rest. Far from nostalgic, in reviving the ancient Augustinian metaphor, Leo XIV has opened his Papal tome quite prophetically. The “restless heart”, he says is not only a diagnosis of the postmodern soul but also a road map towards renewal.

The Restless Heart in a Digital Age

The image of God in humanity is not erased by distraction, only obscured. In a world of endless scrolling, ceaseless noise, and curated selves, the human heart is more restless than ever. And yet, it still longs for its Maker. If he is to be a pivotal leader in the world, I believe, Leo XIV must neither romanticize the past nor demonize the present. As pontiff he must be willing and able to interpret the contemporary experiences of anxiety, alienation, hyper-connectivity, and spiritual fatigue, as modern echoes of Augustine’s own journey. The internet promises omnipresence yet delivers isolation, while mimicking transcendence it only trades in simulation. As leader, much like his name sake Pope St. Leo XIII, the present Leo must urge the faithful not to retreat from the modern world, but to walk through it with the eyes of Augustine: to see each distraction as a distorted desire for communion, each addiction as a malformed thirst for the divine.

A Church That Accompanies, Not Condemns

The restless heart is no longer a problem to be solved by the Church; it is now a grace to be embraced. In our pharmaceutical age the Church must stop trying to quiet the restless heart with prescriptions and rather stir it with questions. How have you been wounded? What can we do to make you spiritually whole once again? What is your eternal longing? Moral life, after all, begins not with obedience, but with desire, man’s desire for God, the restless heart’s ultimate end. Thus, while not lowering moral standards, as Pope, Leo must work to shift the tone of the Church’s moral voice from judgement to accompaniment.

The Politics of Restlessness

Without God, justice becomes management, and freedom becomes license. Leo’s appeal to Augustine’s restless heart while both psychological and pastoral must carry political implications as well. Both the left and the right must be made to rethink long held assumptions. The Church must once again stand in the breach and authoritatively tell the secular progressivists that no utopian project could ever truly satisfy the human heart, and warn the reactionary traditionalist of false nostalgia. For indeed, hearts do not rest in a vanished Christendom, they rest in Christ alone.

The new pope must be able to transcend ideological camps without being evasive or vague as his predecessor was sometimes led to do. Ever mindful that the Church’s job is not to bring political clarity but rather spiritual awakening, Leo must redirect the Church Militant back to the image of the heart, wounded, wandering, and being called home to the Church Triumphant.

A Theology for the Weary

Leo XIV, I believe, must not enter his pontificate with an agenda, but rather a spirituality. While not being dismissive of doctrine or discipline, he must initiate a theology for the weary. For a world tired of consumerism, tired of moralism, tired of cynicism, tired of being told what to do without being asked who they are, the Church must once again become a beacon of Christ’s own heart, overflowing with compassion and mercy. The Church must once again make room for mystery, preaching the Gospel message for what it is, not a fleeting pleasure, but a permanent rest in God.

The Echo of Augustine

The Church must once again find its soul. By invoking the Augustinian restless heart, Pope Leo XIV once again enkindles hope that the Church can once more return to this most fertile source of wisdom. In a modernity that prizes answers, the restless heart must teach us to sit with questions. In age where longing is overmedicated, we must allow it to let us feel ever more deeply. Like the Bishop of Hippo, Leo must help us to remember that to be human is to hunger—and that hunger, when directed toward the divine, becomes the beginning of salvation. We must not be afraid of restlessness, it is, after all, the whisper of the One who made us, we must follow it home. May God in His mercy reunite His Church under the new Vicar of Christ, Pope Leo XIV, Amen.