Jack Tierney O.S.A. is an Augustinian Friar and a student in SLU’s Public and Social Policy Program

ST. LOUIS – When Cardinal Robert Prevost stepped out onto the balcony in St. Peter’s Square as Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, Saint Louis University doctoral student Jack Tierney O.S.A. cheered along with the rest of the world’s Catholics.

“It was thrilling,” he said. “There’s never been an American Pope, and I think we all thought someday, but hardly anyone thought it would be today.”

Tierney is a member of the Midwest Augustinians, the same religious Order that produced Pope Leo XIV. Their paths frequently crossed as brother friars. After Prevost was elevated to Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru, he remained a member of the Province and would often return to celebrate ordinations. They last met at a fundraiser in 2024 when the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel held a capital campaign to raise funds for Evangelization and Vocations. 

Tierney attended the University of Minnesota where he studied political science. He then studied at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and pursued a master’s in public policy and administration at Northwestern University. He says that both are fundamental for his ministry.  When granted an opportunity to pursue his Ph.D. in public policy, he jumped at the chance to become a Billiken.

“I nearly came here as an undergraduate,” he said. “It was great to have a second chance to be at SLU.”

In his work in the Augustinian vocation office, Tierney serves as a high school chaplain and spends time at Life Teen summer camps. Always eager to engage young people in vocational life, during studies at SLU he has helped at Gibault Catholic High School in Waterloo, Illinois as a sacramental minister.

Like many aspects of modern life, vocation seeking is also now an online pursuit.

“I would say that going through the online portal where people have submitted information or discernment questions is 75 percent of the job. It’s where we meet people now,” Tierney said.

This deeply resonates because that’s how he first encountered the Order of St. Augustine. He used a Catholic vocation service called Vision – Vocation Match. 

“I’d never encountered a friar in my life, and it was only when I went looking that I found the Augustinians.”

Prevost himself entered the novitiate of the Order of Saint Augustine (O.S.A.) in St. Louis in 1977, in the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel of Chicago, and made his first profession on September 2, 1978. He first went to Rome in 1982.

Tierney said his encounters with then-Cardinal Prevost showed a quiet man who was always listening to those around him.

“He has a warm style – he is incredibly inviting and trustworthy,” Tierney said. “You can see that he is savvy, and in a group, he studies the room and speaks carefully.”

Pope Leo’s previous positions in leadership roles will aid him as he begins to shepherd the world’s Catholics. Tierney noted that Pope Leo has been “extremely competent in every project he has undertaken for the Church.”

“He is a very learned man and just utterly competent,” he said. “He has these little pockets of expertise in all facets of the Church. It has served his flock well, and those experiences have formed him into the Shepherd that he is.”

Tierney said he believes the Augustinian Charism, which emphasizes community and the pursuit of God through interiority and prayer, will guide Pope Leo XIV.

“Just like Augustine, we pray: “Let me know myself, O Lord, and let me know you,” Tierney said. “Searching for God’s grace and Truth in friendship are at the heart of what we do as Augustinians.”

“The Apostolic tradition which goes back 2,000 years. We pray for the ministry and service of Pope Leo XIV, that he may bring Christ’s peace and joy to the whole Church,” Tierney said.