Pope Leo XIV Attends Augustinian Prior General’s 70th Birthday Celebration

Vatican City, 2 June, 2025: Pope Leo XIV joined Father Alejandro Moral, the Prior General of the Augustinian Order, for a celebratory lunch on Sunday at St. Monica International College in Rome to mark Father Moral’s 70th birthday. The Pope visited the Augustinian community immediately following the Jubilee Mass for Families, Children, Grandparents, and the Elderly, which he had presided over earlier that morning in St. Peter’s Square.

The lunch brought together Augustinian friars, professors, and international students residing at the college, located just steps from the Pope’s residence. The event celebrated not only Father Moral’s milestone birthday but also a decades-long friendship between him and the Holy Father.

A Friendship Rooted in Rome

The Pope and Father Alejandro share a friendship that dates back decades. Born in La Vid, Spain, on June 1, 1955, Father Moral first met the future Pope in the 1980s in Rome, right at St. Monica College. At the time, both were students: Father Robert Prevost was studying canon law at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, while Father Moral pursued biblical studies at the Pontifical Biblical Institute and dogmatic theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Their paths diverged in 1985. Father Prevost, ordained in 1982, was sent to serve in the Augustinian mission in Chulucanas, Piura, Peru. Meanwhile, Father Moral, having completed his studies, returned to Spain. They reunited years later in Rome during the 2001 General Chapter of the Augustinian Order.

Different Paths, Enduring Bond

When elected Prior General, Father Prevost appointed Father Moral as his Vicar General—a collaboration that continued through a second term. For twelve years, the two worked side by side, and their bond deepened. Though their ministries later took different directions, their friendship endured. In 2013, at the conclusion of his term as Prior General, Father Prevost returned to the Augustinian Province in Chicago, while Father Moral was elected the 97th Prior General.

A year later, Pope Francis appointed Father Prevost Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, later naming him its bishop. Yet the spiritual friendship between the two men remained—marked by the Augustinian ideal of life in community, “with one heart and one mind”, as St. Augustine wrote in his Rule, united in the search for God “so that whoever finds the truth may easily share it with others” (Soliloquies I, 12, 20–13, 22).

By Tiziana Campisi

Courtesy: Vatican News