Pope Leo IV’s Early Writing – Freedom Under Grace To Be Released In English In September.

Vatican City; June 2026: A book containing the early public writings by Fr. Robert Francis Prevost—now Pope Leo XIV, will be released on September 15th for the first time in English.

The volume, entitled “Freedom Under Grace: Reflections on the Spiritual Tradition That Formed Me”, will be published by Image Books, an imprint of the Penguin Random House Christian Publishing Group.

Originally published in Italian by the Vatican Publishing House (LEV) under the title Liberi sotto la Grazia, the book gathers homilies, speeches, messages, and letters by Father Robert Francis Prevost, who served as Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine from 2001 to 2013.

The Italian edition was presented in Rome at the Patristic Institute Augustinianum and was given to Pope Leo XIV on the eve of its release. The volume is being translated in several languages.

Edited by Augustinian Fathers Rocco Ronzani, Miguel Ángel Martín Juárez, and Michael Di Gregorio, the book offers a glimpse into the thought and spirituality of the man who would later become Pope.

According to Campbell Wharton, senior vice president and publisher of Penguin Random House Christian, “each chapter is a window into the spiritual depth and vision of the man who would eventually become Pope Leo”. He has described the book as carrying “an urgent message of love and service to address the challenges of the world today”.

Freedom Under Grace, said Campbell Wharton, is intended not only for Catholics, but also for “any Christian or spiritual seeker looking for guidance and hope for living a life that transforms the world”.

During the presentation of the Italian edition in Rome on May 6, 2026, Father Joseph Farrell, eventually the Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine, recalled that the title comes from the Rule of Saint Augustine, which urges monks to live “not as servants under the law, but as men free under grace”.

At the presentation, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin noted that the pages of the book reveal Augustinian themes central to Father Prevost’s thought, including the search for God, the primacy of grace, the mission of the Church, the cry of the poor, and the need to communicate the Gospel in a language intelligible to the modern world.

The publication of the English edition now offers a wider readership the opportunity to encounter the spiritual roots, pastoral vision, and missionary concern that marked the ministry of Father Robert Francis Prevost before his election as Pope Leo XIV.

Earlier, on the 06th of May this year, Maverick News 30 have reported the release of the book in Italian language, which was presented to the Holy Father, Pope Leo IV.

The Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication called it a text that is ‘illuminating’, which recounts the Church, which can also be consulted by themes and ‘defined as central by the Italian press’, in which the concept of ‘authority’ of the then Prior General Prevost (at present Pope Leo IV) stands out.

He said Prevost achieved this in a world “sick with authoritarianism and power helps us to understand the way in which the Pope is guiding and will guide the Church”, with a voice that is not shouted, with firmness and gentleness, building unity and communion.

Meanwhile, of the twelve years in which Prevost was Prior General, from 2001 to 2013, Cardinal Parolin recalled, among the events that marked them, were the attacks on the Twin Towers, the resignation of Benedict XVI and the election of Pope Francis.

And from the pages of the book, the Cardinal pointed out the Augustinian traits of Prevost that emerge, that search for God and that longing of the human heart that lead the future Leo XIV always to begin ‘from the primacy of God, from the original relationship’ between man and God.

Thus, for example, in an address in Australia in 2002, the Cardinal highlighted, he invited Christians “to be ‘professionals’ in the search for human meaning, bearing witness to the salvation and fullness that come from God”, but specified that believers are not “people who ‘possess’ the truth”, but rather “fellow travelers, brothers and sisters who journey together in the adventure of life”. The Cardinal have called the theme of the ‘possession of truth’, which, he recalled “was also very dear to Pope Francis, as being “the search for truth, for God who is truth, is not an exclusive possession nor an excluding path”, but “a journey that makes us brothers and sisters in the One”.

Team Maverick.