Learn from St. Augustine’s City of God, Pontiff tells Catholic lawmakers
August 25, 2025
Pope Leo XIV received members of the International Catholic Legislators Network on August 23 and encouraged them to learn from St. Augustine’s The City of God, in which the “Church Father taught that within human history, two ‘cities’ are intertwined: the City of Man and the City of God.”
“The City of Man, built on pride and love of oneself, is marked by the pursuit of power, prestige and pleasure; the City of God, built on love of God unto selflessness, is characterized by justice, charity and humility,” Pope Leo said, as he contrasted two visions of human flourishing.
In the first, “a flourishing life is often confused with a materially wealthy life or a life of unrestricted individual autonomy and pleasure ... Yet we know that this is not enough. We see this in affluent societies where many people struggle with loneliness, with despair and a sense of meaninglessness.”
“Authentic human flourishing,” on the other hand, “stems from what the Church calls integral human development, or the full development of a person in all dimensions: physical, social, cultural, moral, and spiritual.”
“This vision for the human person is rooted in natural law, the moral order that God has written on the human heart, whose deeper truths are illuminated by the Gospel of Christ,” the Pope explained. “In this regard, authentic human flourishing is seen when individuals live virtuously, when they live in healthy communities, enjoying not only what they have, what they possess, but also who they are as children of God.”
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