Pope Leo XIV publishes the ancient documents | Books

Robert Prevost – now Pope Leo XIV – plans to publish his writings from the 2000s in English later this year.

Freedom of Grace: Reflections on the Spiritual Tradition That Made Me Will Be Released in September, featuring unpublished family and personal addresses from Prevost’s time as head of the Order of Saint Augustine between 2001 and 2013.

The book has “an urgent message of love and work to solve the problems of the world today,” said Campbell Wharton, publisher at Penguin Random House Christian, a US book publisher. The collection was originally published in Italian by the Libreria Editrice Vaticana, the Vatican publishing house. In the UK, it will be the opening chapter for the new spirituality at Penguin division Cornerstone. Wharton described it as a book “for every Catholic, and every Christian or spiritual seeker”.

Prevost became the first American pope in May 2025. Born in Chicago, he studied mathematics at Villanova University, Philadelphia, before being ordained as a priest in Rome in 1982. He was then sent to a mission in Peru. After serving as head of the Augustinian order in the 2000s, he was consecrated bishop in 2014, and was appointed cardinal by the late Pope Francis in 2023.

The collection is arranged chronologically, so that “readers can see how Prevost is thinking”, writes editor Matthew Burdette in a reader’s note. Topics covered in this book include education, leadership, diversity and “the church in the world”. The title of the book comes from the words of the Rule of Saint Augustine, when the Bishop of Hippo exhorts his monks to live “not as slaves obeying the law, but as free people under grace”.

Prevost’s sermons and speeches since becoming pope were published as Peace Be With You!: My Message to the Church and the World in February.