On May 17, just over a week after white smoke rose above St. Peter’s Square, I offered the first public analysis of Pope Leo XIV’s doctoral dissertation — five days before The New York Times published its own. Since then, interest in the text has only grown. Catholic educators, theologians and many friends — both lay and clerical — have all asked me the same question: What else is in the dissertation?

This article takes a closer look at the future Pope’s 1987 academic work, The Office and Authority of the Local Prior in the Order of Saint Augustine. While the complete dissertation remains largely unavailable to the public, a small number of us have access. As stewards of this resource, we have a responsibility to illuminate it faithfully.

My earlier commentary focused on how then-Father Prevost understood ecclesial authority: not as control, but as communion; not improvised, but structured by law, charity and his Augustinian fraternal life. Here, I want to explore three distinct dimensions of ecclesial leadership that the dissertation addresses — teaching (docendi), sanctifying (sanctificandi) and governing (regendi) — and how these roles appear to be shaping Pope Leo XIV’s early papacy.

A Pope Who Teaches by Witnessing

Father Prevost’s dissertation draws heavily on the Church’s post-conciliar theology of leadership, particularly the threefold offices (munera) of teaching, sanctifying and governing. On the munus docendi, he writes:

In exercising his ministry of magister in the community, the Prior must seek to give direction to the community using these characteristics as the foundation of his teaching. In this way, he will be able to create within the community an atmosphere of continual learning so that each member can develop the specifically Augustinian attributes of his vocation (83).

This is not academic instruction alone — it’s a call to bear witness to the Gospel through one’s life. Much of Father Prevost’s writing assumes that formation begins with integrity and example, with an openness to the presence of God. We already see this approach to teaching in Pope Leo’s early addresses. In his Pentecost homily on June 8, he offered a striking meditation on the renewing power of truth through the presence of the Holy Spirit:

The Spirit opens borders, first of all, in our hearts. He is the Gift that opens our lives to love. His presence breaks down our hardness of heart, our narrowness of mind, our selfishness, the fears that enchain us and the narcissism that makes us think only of ourselves. The Holy Spirit comes to challenge us, to make us confront the possibility that our lives are shrivelling up, trapped in the vortex of individualism.

This vision — where doctrinal clarity flows first from a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit — reflects a theology of leadership learned first in community, not in the chancery; shaped by the restless search for God among brothers, not by the settled certainties of institutional routine.

A Pope Who Sanctifies by Prayer

For Father Prevost, the prior’s role is inseparable from the community’s spiritual life. The munus sanctificandi is not an add-on to governance, but its heart. He writes:

The Prior’s responsibility has a spiritual dimension, or better, has its foundation within the context of caring for the quality of the religious life of the Augustinians living in that community (99).

This care of souls is deeply personal. Elsewhere, he notes that superiors “have the care of the Brothers, ‘especially in spiritual matters,’” and that questions of dignity and holiness “all carry with them aspects which demand the interest and concern of the Prior” (99-100).

While Pope Leo XIV has not yet issued a major magisterial document, his homilies are profoundly spiritual and bear all the hallmarks of St. Augustine’s focus on interiority. That same disposition pervaded his homily at Rome’s diocesan cathedral, St. John Lateran, where he taught that communion is “built primarily on our knees, through prayer and constant commitment to conversion.” This is not mere poetic prose — it is the very grammar of sanctity that has consistently animated his life and work for nearly 40 years.

That language is sacramental as well as spiritual. In one significant section of the dissertation, notable attention is given to the Sacraments of the Holy Eucharist and Penance — not simply as liturgical acts, but as the heartbeat of communal life and renewal. Father Prevost echoes both Pope St. Paul VI’s Perfectae Caritatis and St. Augustine’s own vision when he writes:

No Christian community can be built up unless it has its basis and center in the celebration of the most Holy Eucharist (107).

The superior must therefore do more than participate in the sacraments; he must help make them visible, regular and reverent within the community. Whether by organizing daily Mass or setting aside special occasions for wider celebration, the prior sanctifies by ensuring that the Eucharist remains the center of fraternal life (cf. 106-110).

The same spirit marks his treatment of the Sacrament of Penance. Prevost underscores the prior’s duty to protect each brother’s freedom of conscience while promoting “frequent” confession as a means of personal and communal sanctification (111). The prior must never coerce; rather, he must create the conditions in which conversion and healing are possible — through pastoral availability, trusted confessors, and penitential celebrations where “the proclaimed word of God is an invitation to conversion” (112). In both sacraments, the sanctifying work of the superior is not managerial but mystical: he is responsible for fostering an environment in which grace can be encountered and received freely.

This sacramental sensibility took tangible form recently, as Pope Leo XIV presided at the Mass and traditional Eucharistic procession for the feast of Corpus Christi on June 22 in Rome. His reflection during the general audience that same weekend offers a clear expression of his view that the Eucharist is truly the source and summit of the Christian life. His description of the Blessed Sacrament as the definitive “answer” to human hunger does not merely echo an abstract monastic idea; it situates the Eucharistic celebration as the axis point of human longing and divine grace.

A Pope Who Governs by Listening

Of the three munera, Father Prevost offers the most sustained treatment of regendi, the power to govern. He is careful to distinguish between domination and genuine service:

The superior is not the owner of authority; he is its servant. He receives it from the community and exercises it for their good, not his own (cf. 49–50).

This vision is ecclesial, not managerial. As he explains:

The ministry of leadership within a religious community, by means of analogy, has been made equivalent to the munus pastorale in its three-fold function of teaching, sanctifying and governing (54).

If by means of good leadership he is instrumental in uniting the community, in attending to the needs of the community which require his attention, and in watching over their adherence to the Augustinian life, he will fulfill his office of governing in the community (119).

This sense of governance — rooted in obedience, communion and the Rule of St. Augustine — appears repeatedly in the dissertation and again at St. John Lateran, where Pope Leo traced the discernment of the early Church in Acts 15, reminding us that communion arises not from strategy but from patience and mutual listening. Unlike vague appeals to dialogue, Leo XIV’s vision is grounded in discernment, canonical clarity, and obedience to divine Revelation.

From Local to Universal

In my previous article, I noted how the dissertation offers a model of local leadership that clearly “scales upward.” I won’t reiterate the point here, but the dynamic still holds. What was once written for the local prior now applies — carefully proportioned — to the universal pastor.

In its coverage of Pope Leo’s dissertation, The New York Times framed the work as chiefly concerned with administrative minutiae — “how long a prior can stay in office, the structure of mandatory retreats, even how he must advertise workshops.” While the article briefly noted that “authority in religious life is not an end to itself” and that Leo’s leadership is characterized by “trust and humility,” it offered little engagement with the deeper theological vision underlying the dissertation. Left unexamined were its sacramental logic, juridical framework, and communal orientation rooted in Augustinian thought. The result is a portrayal that unfairly reduces a richly ecclesial and intellectual work to a set of procedural guidelines.

Until the text is fully released, I hope this continuation offers clarity for those interested. The Church is watching and praying for a papacy marked by stability, fidelity and spiritual depth. If his 1987 dissertation and early papal homilies are any indication, Pope Leo XIV may not govern as an innovator in the disruptive sense, but as a faithful steward — one who renews by recovering, who reforms by remembering.

Just as the dissertation now speaks with renewed relevance, so too does much of the Church’s theological, spiritual and sacramental treasure trove await rediscovery. Under Leo XIV, may we at last return to what was nearly forgotten — and find that the way forward begins by kneeling before what endures. May the Lord who first called Robert Prevost now sustain him, so that through Pope Leo XIV, the Church may remember, speak and live what is true.