In his first look as Pope Leo XIV at the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, the person born Robert Francis Prevost spoke for 10 mins in Italian. Then he transitioned to Spanish and, with a large grin, gave a greeting to his “beloved diocese of Chiclayo in Peru.”
All over his time within the South American country, he lived along his parishioners thru a bloody civil conflict, a decade-long dictatorship and an risky post-dictatorship duration that has to this point led to a few former presidents being passed jail sentences. Amid those demanding situations, Prevost changed into a part of Peruvian society – and, sooner or later, a pacesetter inside it.
Prevost’s management roles in Chicago and Rome have been crucial in his formation. However as a pupil of faith in Latin The united states, I consider that it’s his time in Peru that has very best ready him to take at the demanding situations of directing the worldwide Catholic Church. In Peru, the place Catholicism permeates public lifestyles, Prevost encountered deep social and political demanding situations in ways in which bishops in lots of different nations would possibly by no means face so at once.
Missionary throughout conflict and dictatorship
Prevost first arrived in Peru in 1985. A member of the Order of St. Augustine, the younger guy have been despatched to its undertaking in Chulucanas, within the northern province of Piura. Chulucanas is set 30 miles east of the regional capital, the place the barren region coast starts to stand up into the Andes.
After a yr, Prevost left to complete his doctoral level and serve in short in Illinois. However he quickly returned to Peru, serving as a missionary within the northern town of Trujillo. He stayed there thru the rest of the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, amid civil conflict between the federal government and quite a lot of militant teams – basically the Maoist guerrillas of Sendero Luminoso, or “Shining Path,” who aimed to put in a communist state.
The violence hit different areas extra significantly, however Trujillo and the encompassing space have been house to automotive bombs, sabotaged electric grids and brutal army dragnet operations. Prevost accompanied Peruvians thru one of the vital darkest days of the rustic’s historical past.
All over those years, Prevost skilled long run clergy and served as a parish priest. One fellow Augustinian recalled that Prevost performed a key position in recruiting and coaching Peruvian applicants to the priesthood. Prevost additionally based the Trujillo parish of Nuestra Señora de Montserrat, the place his parishioners knew him as “Padre Roberto.”
As the rustic transitioned clear of the civil conflict duration, which in the end left just about 70,000 lifeless, Prevost remained in Peru. All over the Nineteen Nineties, President Alberto Fujimori’s executive constructed a polarizing legacy via undermining democracy and citizenship rights whilst taking pictures the 2 maximum tough guerrilla leaders.
Peruvian households elevate stays of not too long ago known kinfolk who have been killed years in the past, throughout the insurgency, to the cemetery for burial in 2022.
AP Photograph/Martin Mejia
As I display in my analysis, faith and politics are deeply intertwined in Peru. Via the Nineteen Nineties, the Peruvian Catholic Church was once divided between individuals who spoke out in protection of human rights and people who defended the ceaselessly brutal ways of the federal government. Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, who was once then the archbishop of Ayacucho – the Andean stronghold of Sendero Luminoso – changed into a spokesperson for the pro-state faction, framing defenders of human rights as apologists for terrorism.
Prevost was once amongst those that maintained a important view of any birthday celebration, together with the federal government, that dedicated human rights abuses. Diego García-Sayán, the rustic’s former minister of justice and overseas affairs, not too long ago wrote an op-ed praising Prevost’s willingness to talk out towards makes an attempt to legalize the loss of life penalty and to protect embattled human rights organizations.
From Chiclayo to the Vatican
After returning to america in 1999, Prevost rose in the course of the management ranks of the Augustinian order. He was once despatched again to Peru in 2014, when Pope Francis named him the apostolic administrator, and later bishop, of the northern diocese of Chiclayo.
As bishop, Prevost emerged as a voice for democracy and justice. In a 2017 public observation to nationwide media, he prompt former President Fujimori to “personally ask forgiveness for the great injustices that were committed and for which he was prosecuted.”
All over his tenure as bishop, Prevost helped information his group in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. He additionally performed a key position ministering to Chiclayo’s rising inhabitants of Venezuelan migrants.
Venezuelan Betania Rodriguez on Might 10, 2025, presentations a photograph all for Pope Leo XIV at a migrant safe haven in Chiclayo, Peru.
AP Photograph/Guadalupe Pardo
In the meantime, he was once gaining the arrogance of his friends, in addition to Pope Francis. Prevost was once given a management position within the Peruvian Convention of Bishops and performed a central position throughout Francis’ 2018 talk over with to Peru. In 2023, Francis named Prevost prefect of the Dicastery of Bishops, the oversight frame for naming new bishops the world over.
Prevost took the placement in Rome however was once unhappy to depart Peru once more. “This time, again, it will be hard for me to leave here,” Prevost informed Peruvian media.
Lately, Prevost has taken on reasons central to Francis’ papacy. He was once a key actor within the Vatican investigations of a Peruvian group, Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, which was once discovered to have dedicated dozens of sexual and mental abuses courting again to the Nineteen Seventies. Francis dissolved the group in 2025. Prevost has additionally advanced an greater center of attention on Indigenous and environmental rights, in keeping with Francis’ 2015 encyclical Laudato Si and 2019 convention for bishops within the Amazon.
Native celebrations
Images and memes celebrating the Peruvian pope have flown round social media and WhatsApp teams in Peru. The pictures of Prevost consuming conventional dishes from the north coast are particularly in style. AI-generated memes of the pope dressed in the Peruvian nationwide football jersey or consuming ceviche with an Inca Kola soda are making the rounds.
In Chicalayo and Trujillo, along with professional church celebrations, 1000’s have taken to the streets to specific their pleasure with placards and chants.
Leo XIV has obviously introduced the reminiscence of his years in Peru with him to the Vatican. He has selected Edgard Rimaycuna, a Peruvian priest whom the pope knew from his time in Chiclayo, as his non-public secretary.
I consider the demanding situations that Leo guided his parishioners thru in 20 years in Peru must be offering precious classes for the brand new pope to construct at the legacy of Francis, the primary Latin American pope.
