ROMA — Radio Vaticana-Vatican News has released Leone a Roma, a new documentary dedicated to the years Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, spent in the Eternal City. Released on 1 July in Italian (with English and Spanish subtitles), the film follows the pope’s Roman journey from his arrival from the United States in 1981 through his years of study, friendship, religious leadership, and later service to the Holy See. Vatican News presents the documentary as the third part of a broader series on the life of Pope Leo XIV, following León de Perú and Leo from Chicago.
For the Dominican Order, one of the most significant dimensions of Pope Leo’s Roman era is his formation at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Urbe (the Angelicum). Then-Fr. Robert Francis Prevost, OSA, studied for a Licentiate in Canon Law from 1981 to 1983 and completed work for his Doctorate in Canon Law from 1983 to 1985. His doctoral dissertation was entitled “The Office and Authority of the Local Prior in the Order of Saint Augustine.”
Pope Leo at the Angelicum
The documentary includes the testimony of fr. Joseph Fox, OP, a Dominican friar, canonist, and former professor at the Angelicum, who was a student there during the same period as the future pope. His recollections offer a distinctly Dominican angle on the formation of Pope Leo XIV: one that included a strong academic formation, but was markedly an experience of study lived in fraternity, international friendship and availability of professors for students.
“The Angelicum has a history of a very friendly welcoming spirit, both among the students themselves and with the professors who were always available to the students,” fr. Joseph says in the documentary. “And this is the environment that both the Holy Father and I were able to experience. Students came from all over the world. At that time there were around 1,000, students from more than 100 different nations across the world with all their languages.”
This description evokes one of the particular gifts of the Angelicum: a Dominican university at the heart of Rome, where the intellectual tradition of Saint Thomas Aquinas serves the universal mission of the Church. Students from many countries and religious families come together to be formed in a culture of dialogue, service to the Church, and friendship.
Fr. Joseph also recalled the seriousness and success with which the future Pope completed his academic work: “He was able to present his doctoral dissertation at the end of May 1985 and he did brilliantly of course. Then he moved to Peru to serve in the missions. He wrote a dissertation with the title, ‘The Office and Authority of the Local Prior in the Order of Saint Augustine.’”
Preparation for a lifetime of service
In that title, one can already glimpse themes that would mark Pope Leo XIV’s later ministry: authority, religious life, community, obedience, and service. The young Augustinian’s doctoral research at the Dominican university prepared him for a life in which he would later serve as missionary in Peru, Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine, Bishop of Chiclayo, Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, and now Bishop of Rome.
The documentary also brings to light the personal atmosphere of those years. Seeing a photo of students, which includes the Holy Father, Fr. Joseph said, “Seeing this photo brings back many beautiful memories because it is a family photo, that is how they treated us.”
For the Order of Preachers, this testimony is a reminder that study is never merely institutional. At its best, Dominican study is familial: a shared search for truth, carried out in friendship, prayer, and service to the Church. The Angelicum’s mission is not only to transmit doctrine, but to form men and women capable of preaching, governing, teaching, and serving with wisdom.
The film also returns to the first moments of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate, when the new Pope appeared on the loggia of Saint Peter’s Basilica. Recalling that moment, fr. Joseph said, “The words he uses are not so important but rather, we can breathe with him, we can pray with him and live with him.”
In Leone a Roma, the Roman years of Pope Leo XIV are seen through the eyes of those who studied, prayed, worked, and walked with him. For Dominicans, the documentary offers particular joy: the Pope’s story passes through the halls of the Angelicum, where a Dominican house of study helped form a future successor of Peter for service to the whole Church.
Watch the documentary on YouTube.
