Interview: Radical Caputo introduced Leo to his "Radical Theology" Augustine - "Leo XIV, was one of your students. Could you tell us how his Augustinian identity connects with your theology of the event? John D. Caputo: Yes, he was one of my students in a course I taught for Augustinian seminarians...
May 14, 2025 — Could you tell us how his Augustinian identity connects with your theology of the event? John D. Caputo: Yes, he was one of my students in a ...Read more
... The new pope, Leo XIV, was one of your students. Could you tell us how his Augustinian identity connects with your theology of the event?
John D. Caputo: Yes, he was one of my students in a course I taught for Augustinian seminarians at Villanova University. The seminarians, who were part of the Order of Saint Augustine (OSA), had to complete a rigorous philosophy curriculum, and one of the required courses was mine: German Existentialism and Phenomenology.
In that course, I taught Kierkegaard and Nietzsche in the first half, then Husserl and excerpts from Heidegger’s Being and Time in the second half. He was part of a sharp group, including Robert Dodaro, who became a leading Augustine scholar. Dodaro and a few others were more vocal, while the future pope was more reserved—he listened more than he spoke.
That trait became significant later when the cardinals explained their choice: he’s a good listener. People feel heard in his presence, which enhances his communication. His focus on synodality, a model of church leadership based on community and dialogue, reflects this. I remembered it from class, and when he was elected, I checked my old attendance books—sure enough, he was there. Others spoke often; he listened carefully. He was a good listener from the start.
How important is the Augustinian spirit at Villanova?
John D. Caputo: The Augustinian spirit is central at Villanova, and it influenced my teaching. I often connected Kierkegaard to Augustine, pointing out that existentialism has its roots in The Confessions of Saint Augustine, which I presented as a genuine philosophical lineage. This helped introduce students to Continental Philosophy, which, while not tied to Thomas Aquinas, resonates deeply with Augustine, especially The Confessions.
The City of God is more of a public defense of faith, but The Confessions is personal, revealing the self before God, coram Deo. This is where we see the emergence of the modern, existential subject, linking Augustine to contemporary thought.
A key moment in my intellectual life was my early interest in Derrida, long before he mentioned Augustine. When I first read Of Grammatology in the late ’70s, Derrida was controversial. I argued he wasn’t attacking universals to tear them down, but to affirm the unique and marginalized, much like Augustine’s focus on the particular, not scientia but sapientia.
Then, in 1991, Derrida’s Circonfession blew me away. It was his life story through the lens of The Confessions, confirming my view of the connection between Derrida and Augustine.
I later organized conferences at Villanova with Derrida, including one dedicated to The Confessions, bringing together Augustine scholars and Derrida. This marked a convergence of my work on Derrida and Augustine. All of this happened after the young pope Prevost was my student in 1977, when I was just starting to explore Derrida’s work. He wasn’t exposed to it in my classroom, but he did encounter Augustine as the pre-modern precursor to the post-modern—a helpful way to understand their continuity.
Can you explain that?
John D. Caputo: Augustine, in many ways, predates the rise of metaphysics as we know it. In his time, theology wasn’t a scientific discipline but a pastoral engagement with Scripture, aimed at articulating the faith within the community. The idea of theology as a structured discipline didn’t emerge until the 12th century.
Augustine didn’t have to “overcome” metaphysics—he was never shaped by it. Though he engaged with Neoplatonic ideas, he wasn’t an academic or university professor. He was a bishop, focused on pastoring and teaching, and didn’t make a sharp distinction between philosophy and theology.
For Augustine, theology was a way of life, not an academic field, giving his thought a pre-metaphysical quality. He didn’t move beyond metaphysics; he was never part of it. That’s why I see a resonance between the pre-modern and the post-modern, as Augustine’s pastoral, existential thinking connects to postmodern concerns by not being bound by later metaphysical theology.
Joseph Ratzinger aka Pope Benedict XVI, was influenced by Martin Heidegger. Do you see a connection between St. Augustine and him ?
John D. Caputo: Yes, but Ratzinger represents a traditional theological stance. Though he didn’t start that way, he became a deeply conservative thinker. His engagement with Augustine is conventional, not radical, and the same goes for Jean-Luc Marion. Despite his sophisticated, phenomenological approach, Marion ultimately reinforces a classical, neo-Platonic Christian framework.
Radical theology, however, operates on a different level. It’s not present in Ratzinger or Marion. Marion’s use of phenomenology, especially the concept of the saturated phenomenon, feels like a transcription of von Balthasar’s aesthetics—God’s glory expressed as an excess of presence. It’s a theology of plenitude and affirmation.
In contrast, radical theology, like Derrida’s deconstruction, embraces unknowing, absence, and the apophatic. It’s not about the glory of what is, but feeling about in the dark for what might come—an event that could be redemptive or catastrophic. This openness is missing in thinkers like Ratzinger, Marion, or von Balthasar, whose Christocentric theology is rooted in theological confidence—God as a rock.
While their theology is sincere and rich, it’s not radical in the way I mean: it doesn’t deconstruct metaphysics or push theology into postmodern territory. It sustains rather than disrupts tradition.
Stop for a moment of silence, ask Jesus Christ what He wants you to do now and next. In this silence remember God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost – Three Divine Persons yet One God, has an ordered universe where you can know truth and falsehood as well as never forget that He wants you to have eternal happiness with Him as his son or daughter by grace. Make this a practice. By doing this you are doing more good than reading anything here or anywhere else on the Internet.
I ask all The Catholic Monitor readers to also pray for the end of this war. Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTube: ...Read more Please Pray for Trump to end the Iran War: Watch "Trump Calls Putin To Get Iran War Offramp! w/ Scott Ritter" on YouTubeFranklin & Graham calls on Christians to pray for 'end to the bloodshed' ahead of Trump-Putin summit...7mo
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Conclave Notes:
-- Open letter urges Pope Leo XIV to correct ‘scandalous incoherence’ in Amoris Laetitia...[Wow! Even notorious Popesplainer Fr.] Harrison warns that Pope Francis taught a ‘dangerous self-contradiction’ on Communion for the divorced and ‘remarried,’ petitioning Pope Leo to correct the record. [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/08/open-letter-urges-pope-leo-xiv-to.html]
-- Are the Cardinals who will participate in the upcoming conclave authentically appointed & morally justified in voting, or will the shadow of Francis's possible illegitimacy cast itself over the next papacy? [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/04/are-cardinals-who-will-participate-in.html]
-- 5 Dubia Questions for 1P5's Steve Skojec & All faithful Catholics especially Francis is definitely Pope Cardinals, Bishops & pundits [https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/06/5-dubia-questions-for-steve-skojec.html]
Francis Notes:
l– Doctor of the Church St. Francis de Sales totally confirmed beyond any doubt the possibility of a heretical pope and what must be done by the Church in such a situation:
“[T]he Pope… WHEN he is EXPLICITLY a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church MUST either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See.”
(The Catholic Controversy, by St. Francis de Sales, Pages 305-306)
Saint Robert Bellarmine, also, said “the Pope heretic is not deposed ipso facto, but must be declared deposed by the Church.”
[https://archive.org/stream/SilveiraImplicationsOfNewMissaeAndHereticPopes/Silveira%20Implications%20of%20New%20Missae%20and%20Heretic%20Popes_djvu.txt]
– “If Francis is a Heretic, What should Canonically happen to him?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2020/12/if-francis-is-heretic-what-should.html
– “Could Francis be a Antipope even though the Majority of Cardinals claim he is Pope?”: http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2019/03/could-francis-be-antipope-even-though.html
– If Francis betrays Benedict XVI & the”Roman Rite Communities” like he betrayed the Chinese Catholics we must respond like St. Athanasius, the Saintly English Bishop Robert Grosseteste & “Eminent Canonists and Theologians” by “Resist[ing]” him: https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/12/if-francis-betrays-benedict-xvi.html
– LifeSiteNews, “Confusion explodes as Pope Francis throws magisterial weight behind communion for adulterers,” December 4, 2017:
The AAS guidelines explicitly allows “sexually active adulterous couples facing ‘complex circumstances’ to ‘access the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist.'”
– On February 2018, in Rorate Caeli, Catholic theologian Dr. John Lamont:
“The AAS statement… establishes that Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia has affirmed propositions that are heretical in the strict sense.”
– On December 2, 2017, Bishop Rene Gracida:
“Francis’ heterodoxy is now official. He has published his letter to the Argentina bishops in Acta Apostlica Series making those letters magisterial documents.”
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church by the bishops by the grace of God.
Election Notes:
– Intel Cryptanalyst-Mathematician on Biden Steal: “212Million Registered Voters & 66.2% Voting,140.344 M Voted…Trump got 74 M, that leaves only 66.344 M for Biden” [http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/intel-cryptanalyst-mathematician-on.html?m=1]
– Will US be Venezuela?: Ex-CIA Official told Epoch Times “Chávez started to Focus on [Smartmatic] Voting Machines to Ensure Victory as early as 2003”: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2020/12/will-us-be-venezuela-ex-cia-official.html
– Tucker Carlson’s Conservatism Inc. Biden Steal Betrayal is explained by “One of the Greatest Columns ever Written” according to Rush: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/tucker-carlsons-conservatism-inc-biden.html?m=1
– A Hour which will Live in Infamy: 10:01pm November 3, 2020:
http://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2021/01/a-hour-which-will-live-in-infamy-1001pm.html?m=1
What is needed right now to save America from those who would destroy our God given rights is to pray at home or in church and if called to even go to outdoor prayer rallies in every town and city across the United States for God to pour out His grace on our country to save us from those who would use a Reichstag Fire-like incident to destroy our civil liberties. [Is the [J6] DC Capitol Incident Comparable to the Nazi Reichstag Fire Incident where the German People Lost their Civil Liberties?: http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/is-dc-capital-incident-comparable-to.html?m=1 and Epoch Times Show Crossroads on Capitol Incident: “Anitfa ‘Agent Provocateurs‘”:
http://catholicmonitor.blogspot.com/2021/01/epoch-times-show-crossroads-on-capital.html?m=1]
Pray an Our Father now for the grace to know God’s Will and to do it.
Pray an Our Father now for America.
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