Pope Leo XIV: One Year of Peace in a Restless World | Rebel Saints Podcast
One year into the papacy of the first American pope, Nicole reflects on why Pope Leo XIV’s simple, repeated message of peace is cutting through the noise of our exhausted, outrage-driven culture.
In this heartfelt episode, she explores how an Augustinian missionary from Chicago stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s and greeted a divided world with “Peace be with you” — and hasn’t stopped saying it since. With over 400 references to peace in his first year, Pope Leo is calling the Church back to something that is urgently needed: the disarming, unarmed peace of Christ that refuses to let hatred win.
Drawing on St. Augustine’s restless heart, Nicole unpacks why this papacy feels so significant right now, amid political clashes, wars, cultural exhaustion, and the soul-deep tiredness so many feel. This isn’t about politics. It’s about the Gospel’s refusal to be captured by any earthly power and its relentless invitation to rest in God.
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TRAnSCRIPT
Edited transcript for readability
Hey rebels, welcome back to the Rebel Saints podcast.
My name is Nicole Olea, and I am your host.
And first, I just want to say thank you. I’ve gotten some really wonderful feedback lately from listeners and people in our Facebook group, and honestly, I love this little community we’re building because there is such a beautiful mix of people here.
We’ve got theology nerds listening who are probably already preparing to mentally cross-reference everything I say with the Catechism and at least three Church Fathers before this episode is over. God bless you. You are absolutely my people.
We also have exhausted parents listening while folding laundry at ten o’clock at night wondering how there are somehow still more socks left to sort. Honestly, I can relate because I currently have two baskets of socks waiting for me right now.
We’ve got college students trying to figure out whether God might actually be calling them toward something bigger than hustle culture and whatever existential crisis TikTok handed them this morning.
We’ve got cradle Catholics, converts, people rediscovering the faith after years away, people listening because they love the Church, and people listening because they’re struggling with the Church.
And there are probably at least a few of you here because a Catholic friend sent you this episode with a text saying:
“You HAVE to listen to this.”
Which honestly feels mildly terrifying because now I really don’t want to disappoint you.
But welcome.
I’m so glad you’re here.
And if you saw this episode title and thought:
“Nicole, are you seriously going to talk about the pope for an entire hour?”
Probably not an hour.
More like fifteen or twenty minutes.
But yes, this episode is entirely about Pope Leo XIV and his first year as pope and Vicar of Christ.
One year into the pontificate of Pope Leo XIV, I genuinely believe Catholics are eventually going to look back on this moment and realize this was never simply the story of “the first American pope.”
This is the story of a man stepping onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica during one of the most anxious, divided, spiritually exhausted moments in modern history and greeting the world with a single word:
Peace.
I still remember watching it happen.
“Peace be with you all.”
Do you remember it?
The bells of Rome ringing.
The crowds overflowing beneath Saint Peter’s.
People waving flags.
Crying.
Filming grainy videos on their phones.
And suddenly there stood this Augustinian missionary from Chicago with the calmest, most peaceful expression on his face.
And yes, I can only imagine what he must have been feeling internally in that moment, but outwardly he radiated peace.
And he could have chosen anything to say first.
Anything.
But instead he looked out at this restless world and said:
“Peace be with you all.”
I do not think that was accidental.
Not even a little.
And the more I’ve learned about Pope Leo this year, and honestly the more I’ve learned about Saint Augustine of Hippo, the more convinced I am that it was deeply intentional.
According to reports from Vatican News marking the first anniversary of his pontificate, Pope Leo referenced peace more than four hundred times throughout homilies, speeches, audiences, apostolic journeys, Easter messages, and public appeals during his first year alone.
Four hundred times.
At some point, peace stops sounding like a poetic preference and starts sounding like the center of how this pope understands the mission of the Church in this moment of history.
And maybe at first that sounds simple.
Until you stop and think about the world we are living in.
We live in an age that monetizes outrage.
Entire systems now profit from keeping people angry, afraid, anxious, humiliated, and emotionally reactive.
Outrage keeps people scrolling.
It keeps people consuming.
It keeps people clicking.
Most people now experience the world through a nonstop stream of conflict:
political conflict,
family conflict,
cultural conflict,
online conflict.
People wake up and immediately begin absorbing the anxieties of the world through a glowing screen before their feet even hit the floor.
And then we do the same thing again before going to sleep.
Honestly, I’m guilty of this too.
But I genuinely do not think human hearts were created to absorb this much negativity all the time.
I don’t think we were meant to carry this much information, anxiety, conflict, and emotional noise constantly.
And I think that’s part of why so many people feel exhausted.
Not ordinary tired.
Soul tired.
That kind of exhaustion is exactly what Saint Augustine understood long before smartphones and 24-hour news cycles ever existed.
And this is what makes Pope Leo fascinating to me.
Because he is not only the first American pope.
He is also the first Augustinian pope.
And that matters more than people realize.
Because if you understand Augustine, you begin to understand why this pontificate sounds the way it does.
Augustine was, in many ways, the definition of a restless soul.
He chased pleasure.
Validation.
Intellectual superiority.
Sex.
Comfort.
Attention.
He had a child out of wedlock.
He pursued every worldly thing he thought might satisfy him.
And eventually he realized none of it worked.
Not wealth.
Not pleasure.
Not achievement.
Not being the smartest person in the room.
None of it quieted the ache inside him.
Which eventually led him to write one of the most profound lines in Christian history:
“Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
That line has survived for sixteen hundred years because Augustine identified something universal about the human condition.
Human beings are restless by nature.
We spend our lives searching for permanence inside temporary things.
We search for meaning in achievement,
attention,
politics,
wealth,
pleasure,
online validation,
relationships,
status.
And yet we still feel hungry.
Because the human heart was made for communion with God.
That is why Augustine still feels modern today.
Human nature is still human nature.
People are still going to people.
Augustine eventually realized there is a difference between distraction and peace.
Modern culture offers distraction constantly.
Real peace is much harder to find.
And I think Pope Leo understands that humanity is facing a profound spiritual crisis right now.
Throughout this first year of his papacy, he has spoken about peace with the urgency of someone trying to remind humanity of something it has forgotten.
He has repeatedly described Christian peace as:
“unarmed and disarming.”
Honestly, I think that may be one of the most beautiful phrases to emerge from this pontificate so far.
Because Christian peace is not weakness.
Christian peace is not pretending evil does not exist.
It is not surrendering moral clarity.
It is not passive acceptance of injustice.
Christian peace means refusing to let hatred become your identity.
It means refusing to let vengeance consume your soul.
It means recognizing the image of God even in people you fear, disagree with, or struggle to understand.
And honestly, that becomes incredibly difficult in moments of political division and war.
That is partly why Pope Leo’s clashes with Donald Trump have received so much attention.
And personally, I honestly think President Trump often chooses to antagonize Pope Leo intentionally.
Even recently, Trump criticized Pope Leo again over the pope’s opposition to the Iraq war and accused him of endangering Catholics.
But honestly, none of this surprises me.
Throughout history, popes who consistently call for peace eventually collide with political leaders who believe escalation is necessary.
And again, as I mentioned in the last episode, this does not mean ignoring suffering or evil.
The suffering in Iran is real.
The violence is real.
The deaths are real.
Christian peace does not mean pretending otherwise.
It means refusing to believe war itself is the ultimate answer.
And historically, this tension between political power and the papacy is nothing new.
The Church has always occupied this uncomfortable place where she speaks to the conscience of the world.
I think Catholics especially need to remember that the pope is not supposed to function as a political mascot for any ideology or party.
The pope’s role is to point humanity toward Christ.
Always.
Even when it frustrates people across the political spectrum.
Christ commands people to:
love their enemies
forgive
show mercy
care for the poor
defend the vulnerable
welcome the stranger
Eventually, those teachings challenge all of us.
And honestly, I think that is why Pope Leo feels so important right now.
This week, Marco Rubio met with Pope Leo at the Vatican just before the anniversary of his pontificate.
And what struck me about the meeting was that despite all the political noise surrounding it, the Vatican kept returning to the same theme:
Peace.
The Vatican described the conversations as cordial and centered on humanitarian concerns, religious freedom, and efforts toward peace amid global conflict.
Rubio even received an olive wood pen from Pope Leo, which honestly feels like the most Pope Leo gift imaginable.
And Rubio, being Catholic himself, understands at least to some degree the tension of trying to represent a nation politically while also being formed by the moral compass of the faith.
And honestly, that is probably all I’m going to say about that.
But back to Augustine.
Augustine understood that people cannot create peace externally while remaining consumed internally by hatred, pride, fear, or division.
And I think that is why Pope Leo keeps returning to peace again and again and again.
Because as Vicar of Christ, he understands humanity’s greatest crisis is not ultimately political.
It is spiritual.
Modern life trains people to react instantly to everything.
We are expected to have immediate outrage.
Immediate opinions.
Immediate condemnation.
Think about cancel culture.
We often do not even allow people the possibility of repentance, growth, or correction anymore.
And yet Pope Leo consistently returns to peace.
Over and over again.
And I think people are responding emotionally to that because underneath all the noise and anger, humanity is starving for peace.
Not shallow positivity.
Not escapism.
Real peace.
The peace of Christ.
The peace rooted in the belief that Christ has conquered death itself.
And honestly, that changes everything.
Because when Christians truly believe death is not the end, it changes how we understand suffering, grief, fear, failure, and history itself.
And this is why the Church endures.
Empires collapse.
Governments rise and fall.
Civilizations disappear.
But the Church remains because she is rooted in something eternal.
And honestly, I think this is why Catholicism continues to fascinate people, even people who are not Catholic.
There is a reason conclaves capture global attention.
Beneath all the cynicism of modern life, human beings still hunger for transcendence.
We still long for:
beauty,
ritual,
mystery,
meaning,
permanence.
And maybe that is ultimately what Pope Leo’s first year has represented for me personally.
A reminder that amid all the instability of modern life, Christ remains peace itself.
Even while our hearts are restless.
Even while we chase distractions trying to fill the ache inside us.
God continues calling people toward Himself.
And maybe that is exactly what someone listening right now needs to hear.
Maybe your life feels restless in a painful way right now.
Maybe you feel lonely.
Anxious.
Exhausted.
Professionally disappointed.
Spiritually numb.
Maybe you feel like everyone else has holiness figured out while you are barely hanging on.
I promise you:
that is not true.
Honestly, I do not have holiness figured out either.
And I don’t think any of us fully do this side of heaven.
The saints were never perfect people gliding effortlessly through life.
Augustine certainly was not.
Saint Peter was impulsive.
Saint Thomas the Apostle doubted.
Saint Martha became overwhelmed.
The saints became saints because they continually turned back toward Christ again and again and again.
That is holiness.
Not perfection.
Persistence in love.
And maybe that is what this papacy is inviting the Church to remember during this restless age.
Peace begins when the human heart finally rests in God.
I want to leave you with another line from Saint Augustine:
“Late have I loved you, Beauty ever ancient, ever new.”
I love that line because Augustine realized, after all his wandering, that God had been pursuing him the entire time.
Even through every wrong turn.
And maybe God is pursuing you too.
Not someday.
Not later.
Now.
Right here in the middle of your ordinary life.
Because Christ has always called restless hearts.
And honestly, that gives me so much hope.
Because I get lost daily too.
I’m Nicole, and this is Rebel Saints:
for restless hearts called to be saints.
Restless hearts, you are welcome here.
