Pope Leo Just Got Four Roommates
For the first time in modern history, a pope will live in community with other priests.
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In a historic first, Pope Leo XIV will live in community with other priests in the Vatican.
According to press reports, Leo plans to move into a modest apartment on the top floor of the Apostolic Residence, where four other priests will share it with him.
Vatican expert Iacopo Scaramuzzi notes this “appears to be the first time in modern papal history that a pope would share his quarters like this.”
The pope’s own personal secretary, Father Edgard Rimaycuna, and several Augustinian brothers (identified by some reports as an Italian, a Filipino, and a Nigerian friar) are expected to join him in the apartment.
These men are not strangers, but collaborators and fellow Augustinians — a little fraternity.
Augustinian Roots and Community
Leo has said plainly that he remains an Augustinian friar even as pope. In that tradition, religious order priests pray together, eat together, and make decisions in common.
Creating a small fraternity at the heart of the Vatican embodies that discipline.
The apartment will be simple by design so that daily life can resemble the life he knows: shared prayer, shared work, shared table.
The papal apartment itself, as Pope Francis once noted, is “large, but not luxurious.”
Community Over Isolation
Recent popes have already pushed against the idea of a sequestered sovereign.
Pope Francis declined the formal papal suite and chose the Casa Santa Marta guesthouse “to live my life with others.”
Leo’s decision carries that instinct forward in a different key: not just proximity to others, but intentional community under the same roof. It’s less about rejecting tradition and more about guarding against isolation in an office that can easily become solitary.
A Quiet Revolution in Papal Life
The communal apartment continues a broader trend of de-imperializing the papacy.
Gone is the lonely throne-room, replaced by a simple household. Leo’s choice underlines values of fraternity, simplicity, and closeness to the faithful.
In living with his priests, he embodies the Christian ideal of brotherhood. It’s a statement, too — even the Vicar of Christ will not be an isolated monarch, but one of us.
Such arrangements protect the pope from vanity and open his life to the people .
In a world of media flash, Leo and Francis offer something different — a quiet, spiritually grounded revolution in how a pope lives.
Sounds like a good move. He's a fairly young man and could be Pope for a long time. Long-term isolation is not good for anyone. I know he keeps a busy schedule so not as though he lacks human contact, but having real friendships is important too.
Pope ♌️ seems so very nice 👍. I hope everything is well with him and you Chris. God’s Blessings to you both and my prayers.