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legacy · ROME, September 1, 2025 AD

Pope Leo XIV opens the Augustinian chapter over St. Monica's relics

Edition of

Saint Monica
A fresco of St. Monica standing in a niche, wearing a dark grey habit and wimple with a golden halo against a scalloped red shell-niche, holding a red leather-bound book.
St. Monica, fresco by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1464-1465 AD, Sant'Agostino, San Gimignano, Italy.

ROME, September 1, 2025 AD — Pope Leo XIV said the Mass on Monday opening the Order of Saint Augustine’s 188th Ordinary General Chapter, in the Basilica of Saint Augustine in Campo Marzio.

The relics of Saint Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, have rested in that church since 1430 AD. Pope Francis opened the Order’s previous chapter in the same basilica on August 28, 2013 AD.

The Mass was a Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit. Pope Leo XIV put aside his prepared text to greet the friars, then preached on listening, humility and unity.

“Let no one think they have all the answers,” Pope Leo XIV told the capitulars. “Let unity be an indispensable goal of your efforts,” he said.

Seventy-three delegates from 46 countries sit in the chapter. It runs to September 18, 2025 AD. The capitulars say their daily Mass at the International College of St. Monica.

About this story

Catholic Saints News tells the lives of the saints as news from their own time and place. This story was written with AI from the historical record, and we read and approved it before it ran.

The Saints' words. This newspaper will never make a saint say something the historical record does not preserve.

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Image. St Monica (on the pillar), Benozzo Gozzoli, 1464-1465 AD, Sant'Agostino, San Gimignano, Italy — see the original.

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More on this saint

A woman in her middle fifties in a dark wool tunic and veil with a white cloth at the brow sits upright on a plain stool beside a bare wooden table holding an untouched cup and a small jug, while behind her a man folds cloth, a child stands in the open doorway and a boy sits on the step, with a colonnaded street and the pale water of the river mouth beyond.
About this picture

AI-generated image, in the manner of Italian quattrocento buon fresco, from the paper's reference portrait based on Death of St Monica (scene 13, south wall) (Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497), 1464-1465 AD, Sant'Agostino, San Gimignano, Italy) View source artwork.

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