Brother Leo — known as “God’s Little Sheep” — was the devoted companion, secretary, and confessor of St. Francis of Assisi. He walked with Francis from the rewriting of the Rule in 1223 to the moment Francis received the stigmata on La Verna. He tended to Francis during his final illness, even nursing him through death itself. After Francis’ passing, Leo fiercely defended the founder’s vision of radical poverty, even suffering scourging for protesting against wealth-based excess within the order
Nearly eight centuries later, another Leo stepped into history. On May 8, 2025, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of Chicago became Pope Leo XIV — the first North American pope.
His election followed the transformative papacy of Pope Francis, the first from South America. From different shores of the Atlantic, these two men mirror one another: both formed in religious orders in Latin America (one in Argentina, one in Perú), both shaped by a deep concern for the poor, and both intent on drawing the Church closer to the Gospel’s roots.
The name “Leo” holds weight. In choosing it, Pope Leo XIV honored not only Leo XIII — champion of social teaching — but, perhaps symbolically, perhaps tangentially, that first Brother Leo, the companion of a saint. Just as the friar walked alongside Francis, Leo XIV walks in spiritual and pastoral continuity with Pope Francis. The relationship is not one of imitation, but of stewardship.
Like Brother Leo, the new pope seems to be, so far, a guardian of vision rather than an architect of change. He inherits Francis’ concerns — poverty, climate, peace — and places them in dialogue with contemporary anxieties. In his first weeks, he warned of the dehumanizing effects of artificial intelligence and spoke urgently against the normalization of war. He also moved decisively on diplomatic fronts, appointing a bishop in China and reopening channels of dialogue where walls had formed.
The connection between Brother Leo and Pope Leo XIV is not about chronology but vocation. Both lived their calling beside giants of faith. Both sought not power, but fidelity. And both remind the Church that companionship is a form of leadership too — whether in the forests of La Verna or the halls of the Vatican.
In their names, we find more than coincidence. We find a thread — simple, strong, and woven across centuries — that binds the friar who wept at St. Francis’ death to a modern pope listening for the cries of the world. Across oceans and ages, the name Leo speaks again: of friendship, of courage, and of quiet, enduring service.
