The Pope’s Friend, Father Pizzo, Is the New Spiritual Guide of the Augurusa Foundation

From Chicago to Calabria, Father Anthony Pizzo: “Antonio Augurusa Like Saint Carlo Acutis”

Father Anthony Pizzo, O.S.A., Provincial Prior of the Augustinians of the Midwest, is the new Spiritual Guide of the Antonio Emanuele Augurusa Foundation. The official appointment ceremony was held in Chicago, Illinois, in the presence of the community of faithful, the delegation of the Knights of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Augustinian brothers, with the presentation by Francesco Augurusa, President of the Augurusa Foundation, of the Letter of Appointment and the Program of spiritual and project accompaniment. The conferral of the appointment took place in the evocative setting of the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompeii, a highly symbolic place for Italian-Americans in Chicago located in the heart of the historic Little Italy. Father Pizzo himself, son of a Campanian mother and Sicilian father, is a proud Italian-American who for years has led the midwestern United States, Canada, and northern Peru for the Augustinians.

An appointment that was received with warmth and enthusiasm and that for the next five years will see Father Pizzo follow the spiritual path and international development of the Foundation. “I thank President Francesco Augurusa and the Foundation for choosing me as a companion on this journey. The mission of the Augurusa Foundation reflects precisely the values we have in the Augustinian Order, such as community, relationships, the search for truth. Its mission—which from today becomes ‘ours’—will be able to have a tremendous impact, I hope with the collective commitment of many of us,” stated the Provincial Prior during the ceremony. President Augurusa is certain that “Father Pizzo’s guidance will offer new light on the path the Foundation is taking to build a better future and bring to life the House of Peace envisioned by my brother Antonio. We are honored and deeply grateful to Father Pizzo for accepting this sacred service, embracing without hesitation the Foundation’s vision and making Antonio Emanuele’s story and message his own, which is the true driving force of our every action.”

A longtime friend of Pope Leo XIV since their academic formation at Villanova University, Father Pizzo is firmly convinced that Antonio’s story must be brought to the Holy Father’s attention. He is certain it will be heard with attention and welcomed promptly because, looking at who the Holy Father is as a man and as leader of the Church, he cannot remain indifferent to a figure in whom the truth of the Gospel resonates with great intensity. According to the Prior, Pope Leo XIV “will take Antonio Emanuele’s figure to heart and will listen to the strength of his message.” On this young messenger of Love and witness of Peace, the Prior speaks with conviction: “I have already heard many people compare Antonio’s figure to that of Carlo Acutis, a young man who led an apparently ordinary life, but who managed to leave an indelible mark because he had consciously chosen a path. A path in which he was deeply involved. I believe Antonio lived his existence in the same way.”

In a long and intimate interview that followed the appointment ceremony, Francesco Augurusa and Father Pizzo shared with complicity thoughts and perspectives on the vision of the Augurusa Foundation’s House of Peace and Saint Augustine’s City of God. In Father Pizzo’s words, the House of Peace is configured as a revelation to the heart of modern man who has lost his way. “The House of Peace is a concrete vision of how we can already now live the journey toward the ‘City of God’ and that brings Peace, as a daily practice not only as a concept, to the center of our lives. This is why we need stories like Antonio’s. Although his life was brief, this young man continues, even after death, to have a tangible impact on our way of thinking and on our vision of how life should be—not just how it is—offering us a direction toward which to strive.” Father Pizzo continues: “When Saint Augustine wrote The City of God, he did so in a time of great confusion for the early Christians so that they could have faith. The central point of this splendid work is that we are constantly journeying between the earthly city or ‘City of Man’ and the heavenly one that awaits us. The latter, however, is not a product of our imagination, it is not merely a hope, but a truth that becomes concrete when we set out on the journey and undertake the passage from one city to the other. Saint Augustine reminds us that our feet are planted in two worlds, the earthly city and the heavenly city, in a necessary and profound tension toward something greater and eternal. The House of Peace is not then a utopia, but is the place where the tension between the two worlds finds a bridge. And if the City of God is what awaits us, the House of Peace is what we can build to arrive there prepared, in heart and spirit. Building the House of Peace is what will lead us to the City of God.”