Pope Leo XIV: Which First First?

Pope Leo XIV’s election has drawn extensive and excellent coverage. The fact that he is a US citizen, “an American,” undoubtedly explains the extensive coverage. The cardinals were also impressed that he was an American, but for them “American” meant “South American.” Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost is a naturalized citizen of Peru, with extensive experience in South America. When the newly elected Leo XIV first spoke to those assembled in St. Peter’s Square, he spoke in Italian wishing peace to all, mentioned that he was an Augustinian, and then spoke in Spanish to his former diocese in Peru. He spoke no English, made no reference to his US citizenship.

That his MDiv is from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago has gone largely unnoticed. I suspect this may prove extremely significant and it sets him apart from his predecessors, perhaps even more than his US citizenship. To the secular press, a theological degree is unimportant, probably because they are unfamiliar and equate it with Sunday school or catechism. But a theological education can be formative and transformative.

When the Catholic Theological Union (CTU) was set up in 1968 in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago, IL, it was in response to the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) and expressed the Council’s spirit.

For those only familiar with Protestant theological education, Catholic seminaries were very different. Seminaries were divided into two different and separate groups: diocesan and religious order seminaries. Most archdioceses had a seminary, and each religious order had its own seminary. There was little intermingling. In general, the religious order seminaries were academically stronger than diocesan seminaries. Seminaries systems were divided into major and minor seminaries, each having a six-year program. A minor seminary was high school and the first two years of college, while a major seminary was the last two years of college (studying scholastic philosophy) and four years of theology. This model, instituted by the Council of Trent (1563), was imported from Europe and imposed on an American system.

With the intent to become an Augustinian friar and priest, Robert Francis Prevost at age 16 entered St. Augustine Seminary High School in Saugatuck, MI, as a freshman in 1969. Notice the date: 1969. It was after the close of Vatican II (1965) and the Augustinians were beginning to implement its reforms for priestly formation. A first step brought seminary education into closer alignment with the American model of education. The Augustinian’s minor seminary (four years of high school and two years of college) was split into a high school seminary and four years of college. Bob Prevost attended the Augustinian college Villanova as a seminarian, where he majored in mathematics, but also took the required philosophy. One of his philosophy teachers was John Caputo. Upon graduating in 1977, he entered the novitiate of the Province of Our Lady of Good Counsel of Chicago and after making his first profession he entered CTU in 1978, graduating in 1982.

When Prevost enrolled, CTU was ten years old. Its founding, inspired by Vatican II, marked a radical innovation in Catholic theological education. The ideology of Catholic seminary education pre-Vatican II involved isolation from the world, demanded by the requirement of priestly celibacy. CTU was formed by three religious orders whose major seminaries were in rural areas. The new CTU bought an old hotel in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. This was education not isolated from the world but engaged with it, right in the center of the city, not hidden behind monastic walls.

Hyde Park was the location of several Protestant schools of theology around the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. CTU began as an ecumenical enterprise. Its first classrooms were in the local Jewish synagogue. From the beginning Rabbi Hayim Perelmuter and John Pawlikowski, OSM, set up a Catholic-Jewish studies program.

The three founding religious orders were quickly joined by others, including the Augustinians. By pooling their resources—libraries, faculty, students, and finances—CTU started life as a strong school of theology. Its faculty was stellar with the cream of the crop from its nearly twenty participating religious orders. Among the early faculty were Barnabas Ahern, CP; Carroll Stuhlmueller, CP; Dominic Crossan, OSM; and Lawrence Nemer, SVD. Other distinguished faculty have continued to serve at CTU.[1]

Early on a few religious women audited courses, then enrolled for credit, and finally in 1972 Alacia Lakey was the first lay woman to attend CTU. But her transition proved difficult, and she transferred to Yale Divinity School. Yet Donald Senior, CP, the longtime president of CTU (1987–94; 1997–2013) once remarked that CTU should erect a statue in her honor because her enrollment marked an important transition for the school. Women had come to stay and made the school more open, inclusive, and collaborative.

In 1978, the year Bob Prevost enrolled, Claude Marie Barbour, among the first ordained female ministers in the Presbyterian Church, joined the faculty teaching missions and Dianne Bergant, CSA, began teaching Old Testament. By the 1980s, women were receiving the MDiv degree from CTU. The ordination of women was on the agenda of CTU. The current president of CTU, Barbara Reid, OP, joined the faculty in 1988.

When Prevost attended CTU the school was well established. It was young, only ten years old, with an outstanding faculty, situated in an urban context, part of an ecumenical group of schools of theology, including the University of Chicago Divinity School. Women were joining the student body and the faculty. Sister Dianne Bergant was his professor of Old Testament. The vision of Vatican II completely infused the school. The New York Times has reported that in 1981 a group of students from CTU, while processing into the church for their ordination, were wearing a blue ribbon signifying their support for the ordination of women. This gesture was so provocative that the presiding bishop refused to continue with the ordination. Bob Prevost was not part of the ordination group, but he surely was aware of the protest. 

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost stands out from his predecessors in several significant ways. He is the first pope who received his vocational formation and theological education in a post-Vatican II environment. The religious orders took the Council’s documents and degrees on priestly formation seriously and systematically.

Like his immediate predecessor, Pope Francis, he did not receive his theological education in Rome. He was trained in an American context, not a Roman one. This is most unusual for someone who reaches the rank of cardinal.

His theological education at CTU and his taking the name Leo XIV reinforces the suspicion that he will stand strong on the questions of social justice, the poor, immigration, and climate change, as did Pope Francis.   

He may well be the only cardinal who had female professors in his theological education. As a student at CTU, he intermingled with women as professors and fellow students. They were a minority, but they were visibly and vocally there. He also would have heard the debate concerning Humane Vitae, Paul VI’s encyclical restating the Roman Church’s position on birth control. How this has influenced his thinking, we do not know. But he knows what the issues are. And he heard it from the perspective of women.

In the 2012, 2014, and 2016 primaries in Illinois, Prevost requested Republican ballots, most likely because of the Republican Party’s position on abortion/right-to-life. The right-to-life ideology strongly correlates with patriarchy. That would indicate little motion on issues connected to women’s ordination, even to the diaconate, or LGBTQ issues.

Father Robert Prevost spent a number of years in the administration of the Augustinians, his religious order. He clearly identifies as an Augustinian and has since he was sixteen years old. He mentioned it in his first words to the world as pope. He served as Provincial prior (head) of the Chicago Province of the Augustinians and two terms as Prior General of the Augustinians worldwide. A prior is not a bishop. A bishop rules. A prior must get along with his fellow friars (brothers). He knows how to build a consensus.

It’s foolhardy to predict a pope’s future. The office and events can have unforeseen consequences. The church of Leo XIV’s youth was not the mythical Tridentine Latin Mass. For him it’s the experimentation with English and the reforms of Vatican II. I spent my whole career teaching in theological schools, both Catholic and Protestant. I know it’s hard to predict how a theological education will affect a student. But it usually has an effect.

As pope, Leo XIV will be a first in many different ways. A citizen of the USA. A naturalized citizen of Peru. The first pope whose education was in a school of theology dedicated to the vision of Vatican II. The first pope to have women theological professors and women fellow students.

It could be very interesting. As an engaged observer, I wish him and his church well.

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[1] In the 1970s and 80s I was teaching and for a time was dean at St. Meinrad School of Theology. In my estimation the three best Catholic schools of theology in the United States were CTU, The Weston School of Theology (a Jesuit school) in Cambridge, MA, and St. Meinrad. 

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