Bishop Erik Varden by Archivo Fotográfico Universidad de Navarra / Wikimedia Commons (Left), Pope Leo XIV by Marco Iacobucci Epp / Shutterstock (Right)
CV NEWS FEED // In celebrating the election of a new pope, Bishop Erik Varden of Trandheim, a prominent Norwegian writer and monk, recently highlighted that Pope Leo XIV has heavyweight theologians as patrons of his papacy.
In his first address May 8 to Rome and to the world, Pope Leo said, “I am an Augustinian, a son of Saint Augustine, who once said, ‘With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.’”
Reflecting on this introduction, Bishop Varden wrote May 8 that Pope Leo is a son “of Augustine, that supremely intelligent, compassionate, yet uncompromising prober of the human condition, who knew how to orient hearts and minds towards God in such a way that his words resound still with undiminished power.”
Prosper of Aquitaine, one of the saint’s disciples, had hailed St. Augustine as a witness of “strong figures who could tame the unjust powers of the world and protect otherwise helpless communities from the ravages of war,” Bishop Varden quoted.
The first pope to bear the name Leo is now known as Leo the Great. He was alive at the same time as Prosper, who once recounted that the pope defended northern Italy with reliance on God’s help, Bishop Varden wrote.
“Augustine and Leo, consummate theologians, men of prayer and courage, orderers of chaos, keen readers of the signs of the times: these are the patrons of a new papacy,” the bishop wrote. “Long life to Pope Leo XIV!”
The next day, Bishop Varden penned a reflection of gratitude for Jesus’ providence for His Church. He also pointed out that even the wide secular world, with all its interest in the conclave, appeared to experience an ache — and longing — amid waiting for a new pope.
“How weird it is,” he wrote, “incomprehensible, really, that the eyes of the whole world have since Wednesday evening been fixed on a chimney above the Sistine Chapel; that global society for all its professions of godlessness, has somehow felt orphaned while Peter’s chair has stood empty. Hardly anyone has not more or less consciously listened out for the Habemus papam!”
The bishop noted that when Pope Leo was first proclaimed, a camera briefly showed a little girl on her father’s shoulders in St. Peter’s Square who began crying upon the announcement of the new pope.
“She cried the way we cry when we meet someone deeply beloved we have not seen for a long time, when we come back home after a painful absence,” he wrote. “The girl is unlikely to have known the new pope personally. Did she even know who he was, Robertus Franciscus Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalis Prevost?
“That would have made no difference at all. For she knew: he was her pope, a personal messenger of the Gospel, a credible bearer of Christ Jesus’ comforting light into this world’s darkness.”
He shared that he also felt profound gratitude in that moment and said that the faithful will “pray filially for our Holy Father Pope Leo XIV. All the while remembering: all of us are called to service and testimony as Christ-bearers, that the light the Lord brought will not be left faintly glimmering under a bed but will be placed aflame on a candlestick, that the world may believe.”