Robert Prevost – now Pope Leo XIV – is set to publish a collection of his writings from the 2000s in English later this year.
Freedom Under Grace: Reflections on the Spiritual Tradition That Formed Me will be released in September, featuring unpublished homilies and addresses from Prevost’s time as prior general of the Order of Saint Augustine between 2001 and 2013.
The book contains “an urgent message of love and service to address the challenges of the world today”, said Campbell Wharton, publisher at Penguin Random House Christian, the US publisher of the book. The collection was originally published in Italian by Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican’s publishing house. In the UK, it will be the launch title of a new spirituality imprint at Penguin division Cornerstone. Wharton further described it as a book “for any Catholic, but also any Christian or spiritual seeker”.
Prevost became the first American pope in May 2025. Born in Chicago, he studied maths at Villanova University, Philadelphia, before becoming ordained as a priest in Rome in 1982. He was then sent to a mission in Peru. After serving as prior general of the Augustinian order in the 2000s, he was consecrated bishop in 2014, and made a cardinal by the late Pope Francis in 2023.
The collection is organised chronologically, so that “readers can observe the development of Prevost’s thinking”, writes editor Matthew Burdette in a reader’s note. Themes covered in the book include education, leadership, diversity and “the church in the world”. The book’s title originates from the text of the Rule of Saint Augustine, in which the Bishop of Hippo urges his monks to live “not as servants under the law, but as men free under grace”.
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A collection of sermons and speeches made by Prevost since becoming pope were published as Peace Be with You!: My Words to the Church and to the World in February.