Pope Leo XIV knelt in prayer at the tomb of St. Augustine in Pavia on June 20, 2026, during a daylong pastoral visit to the northern Italian city. It was a personal return to the Basilica of San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, where he once guided Pope Benedict XVI as leader of the Augustinian Order. This time he came as the first Augustinian pope in history. St. Augustine’s remains have rested there since the 8th century, and local authorities estimated 1,800 bishops, priests, religious sisters, seminarians, lay faithful, and civic leaders gathered in and around the basilica.As the Pope entered the basilica’s cloister, he greeted many familiar Augustinian faces.
“St. Augustine teaches us to live out what Jesus Christ taught us: to love God and to love our brothers and sisters,” he said in off-the-cuff remarks. “Charity toward everyone today is a message from St. Augustine and from Jesus Christ that is very important for the world. May we all truly be this sign of love and charity in the world. May we know how to live out forgiveness, reconciliation, and peace.” He added that “St. Augustine is not ours, he belongs to the Church; and our mission is to make him known in the Church,” because “he has so much to offer in this time.”Inside the basilica, Pope Leo processed with fellow Augustinians and knelt before the fifth-century bishop’s resting place. Citing Augustine’s words, “Do not go outside yourself; return to within yourself; truth dwells in the inner man,” he said that inward turn speaks to the restlessness in the world today, especially among young people.
“The need to return to oneself, to avoid being scattered by external fragmentation, to seek and find a meaning that guides our lives and animates our relationships, is a need shared by all,” he said. At a time when many seem to have lost their spiritual appetite or no longer find the Christian faith appealing, he urged those present to first proclaim the Gospel as a joyful, liberating message of Jesus Christ that reveals the beauty of faith for life and society. “We must proclaim the heart of the Gospel — that is, Jesus — who, through his incarnation, death, and resurrection, reveals to us the mystery of God and, at the same time, the mystery that is ourselves,” the Pope said.