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Pope Embraces Community Living – Roommates Anticipated

Pope Embraces Community Living – Roommates Anticipated

Last updated on: August 25, 2025 at 9:50 pm by Alice H. Murray

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Pope Embraces Community Living – Roommates Anticipated 2025-08-25T21:50:07-04:00 Alice H. Murray

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View of light-colored, multi-story building with numerous windows

The papal apartments will offer community living for the Pope and his intended roommates [Image from Wikimedia Commons]

Everyone must live somewhere, and that includes a pope. It’s not where Pope Leo wants to live that’s garnering attention but how. This pope embraces community living and anticipates roommates sharing his papal apartments. What motivates Pope Leo to desire such living arrangements and what makes his choice so newsworthy?

Traditional Living Arrangements For A Pope

The one thousand-room Apostolic Palace in Vatican City serves as the official residence of a pope. The building, also known as the Papal Palace, Palace of the Vatican, and the Vatican Palace, offers papal apartments on its top floor. Since the 17th century, those apartments have provided a designated home for the pope.

The need for a pope to live in the Apostolic Palace comes down to a practical reason rather than treating him like a king. The huge building is the setting for conducting the business of Vatican City. Besides papal apartments, the Vactican Museums, the Vatican Library, some Catholic Church’s government offices, and various chapels are located there. The pope, of course, is the the head of state of Vatican City and the head of the Roman Catholic church. Vatican City operates as the church’s adminstrative center. Accordingly, it makes sense for the pope to reside on site of the 121-acre smallest sovereign state in the world, much as President Trump resides in the White House in Washington, D.C.

Pcitrue of a smiling Pope Leo sitting in a white, high=backed chair in a white clerican garment and a crucifix on his chest from a chain around his neck

Pope Leo, head of the Catholic church, wants to live in community with roommates [Image from Wikimedia Commons]

What Living Arrangements Do Papal Apartments Provide A Pope?

The unoffical designation “papal apartments” refers to the collection of apartments on the third floor of the Apostolic Palace. Located on two sides of the palace’s third floor, these apartments wrap around a courtyard. The pope’s private quarters comprise a 10-room suite containing a papal bedroom, a study, a medical suite, and a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, from which popes traditionally offer the Sunday blessing.

Each pope puts his personal touch on this living space. Renovations customarily take place with the ascendancy of any new pope in order to meet his personal preferences. In the case of Pope Leo, major renovations are currently ongoing. But, asethetics aside, other practicalities drive this work. First, the papal apartments have remained vacant for twelve years, requiring the repair of water and humidity damage. Also being addressed are structural problems necessitating repair of the plumbing system as well as a redesign.

Pope Leo’s Living Arrangements Then And Now

That Pope Leo would embrace commuity living even as pope seems logical given his background. As Robert Prevost, the future pope grew up modestly in a working-class immigrant family in Chicago. He shared a small house there with his parents and two brothers prior to entering the priesthood. A member of the Augustinian order, Prevost embraced its foundation on community and lived communally with fellow members of the order.

The new pope’s ties to the Augustinians and it values were made clear early on. A few days after his election as pope, he stated, “My life has changed, but I will never give up being an Augustinian.” His intention not to abandon the Augustinian way of community life has been repeated regularly. His statments include encouragement to those in his order “to always live close to one another, as St. Augustine wanted.” Thus, reports Pope Leo will move into the papal apartments with roommates and live communally shoud come as no surprise. However, the plan marks the first time in modern history of cohabitation in the pope’s official residence. Until he moves in, possibly next month, Pope Leo will continue to live in the Sagrestia building next to St Peter’s Basilica.

Front view of small brick house with sidewalk and steps up to the front door where Pope Leo lived growing up

Pope Leo was exposed to community living with his family in his small childhood home [Image from Wikimedia Commons]

Reaction To And Rumors About Community Living By Pope

Unsurprisingly, Pope Leo’s living plans met with mixed reaction online. Tradition is important to the papacy, and roommates occupying the papal apartment with Pope Leo certainly shakes up tradition. On the other hand, he makes a return to the traditional residence of the pope which his predecssor abandoned. Pope Francis elected to live in the simpler Santa Marta guesthouse over the opulent Apostolic Palace.

The big question for all concerns who Pope Leo’s roommates will be. Three to four Augustinians are anticipated fill that role. Father Edgard Rimaycuna, the pope’s Peruvian personal secretary, tops the list of potential roommates. The two developed a close friendship back in Pope Leo’s early days ministering in South America. Rimaycuma is often at the pope’s side and serves as a trusted adviser. Other possibilities could be men already at the Vactican and with whom Pope Leo regularly lunches to maintain a community life.

View of large area in papal apartment with Pope Francis and US Secretary of State John Kerry seated in chairs and speaking to each other

Business may be conducted in the opulent Apostolic Palace, but popes traditionally call its papal apartments home [Image from Wikimedia Commons]

Pope Goes Forward By Going Backward To Community Living

Pope Leo aims to go forward in his papacy by looking back to his roots which embrace community living. His home in the papal apartments would be lived in small community will a handful of his fellow Augustinians. Their tradition of living in community and the tradition of the pope living in the pope’s official residence combine to give a nod to each tradition. While the Apostolic Palace may be opulent, Pope Leo’s lifestyle is down-to-earth. He wants to share daily life with his close family as he did growing up. Now, however, that family is his faith family.

Pope Leo Reopens The Papal Apartments Sealed Since Pope Francis’ Death

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About Alice H. Murray

After 35 years as a Florida adoption attorney, Alice H. Murray now pursues a different path in the publishing industry. With a passion for writing, she is constantly creating with words. Her work includes contributions to several Short And Sweet books, The Upper Room, Chicken Soup For The Soul, Abba’s Lessons (from CrossRiver Media), and the Northwest Florida Literary Review. Alice is a regular contributor to GO!, a quarterly Christian magazine in the Florida Panhandle, and she has three devotions a month published online by Dynamic Women in Missions. Her devotions have also appeared in compilation devotionals such as Ordinary People Extraordinary God (July 2023) and Guideposts’ Pray A Word A Day, Vol. 2 (June 2023), pray a word for hope (September 2023), Too Amazing For Coincidence: Heavenly Interventions (August 2024), pray a word for strength (September 2024), and God’s Constant Presence: Held In His Hand, January 2025. Alice’s first book, The Secret of Chimneys, an annotated Agatha Christie mystery, was released in April 2023. She has an adoption devotional, God Adopted Us First – Faith Lessons from an Adoption Attorney’s Adventures, scheduled for publication in October 2025. On a weekly basis, Alice posts on her blog about current events with a humorous point of view at aliceinwonderingland.wordpress.com. You can read more about the author here.

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