By MARY STADNYK
Associate Editor
Having lived and ministered among the people of Peru since 1982, Immaculate Heart of Mary Sister Eileen Egan can honestly speak to the energy and enthusiasm the South American country’s people have shown toward the election of Pope Leo XIV.
“They are so happy to have the Holy Father as one of their own,” said Sister Eileen, a native of the Diocese of Trenton. Our Lady Queen of Peace, Hainesport, is her home parish and she graduated from Sacred Heart School, Mount Holly, and Trenton Catholic High School.
In her more than four decades in Peru, Sister Eileen served in Lima before relocating to the small city of Sicuani, which is located in the southern Andes Mountains, about 11,000 feet above sea level, where she works in parish ministry.
The day of Pope Leo’s May 8 election, Sister Eileen said it was around noon when she was exercising in a diocesan physical therapy center. As she was preparing to return to her parish, she heard the announcement on the radio that Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States was the new Pope.
“All of the physical therapists ran over and hugged me,” she said. “Then I told them that he was also a Peruvian citizen, so we had another round of hugs to celebrate that fact!”
Sister Eileen reflected on some of the recent social media photos which “visually express the essence of Pope Leo’s missionary vocation.” One photo shows him on horseback in Northern Peru as he travels to those who live beyond the reach of a road in the Andes mountains; in another photo he’s wearing high rubber boots while visiting the people of Chiclayo who were affected by heavy rains caused by “El Niño,” which is a warm current in the Pacific Ocean running down the coast every 10 years or so, and a photo showing Bishop Prevost serving himself from a tin dish from a common pot at a pastoral gathering.
When Pope Leo bestowed his first blessing after the election, Sister Eileen was heartened when he asked permission to speak in Spanish during which he greeted his flock in Chiclayo. He said, “My dear people of Chiclayo, Peru, you were so faithful in accompanying me when I was your bishop. You have shared your faith with me and have given so much, so much. Continue your commitment to the Church that Jesus has given us.”
Upon hearing that he chose the name Leo XIV, Sister Eileen said she immediately recalled Leo XIII’s Encyclical, “Rerum Novarum,” on the rights of workers.
“I knew that he was opting for social justice in the spirit of Pope Francis’ preoccupation for the poor and marginalized,” she said.
Pragmatically, Sister Eileen added that while “Most of us will not be riding horses out into the Andes mountains or dipping our dinner out of a common pot anytime soon, those experiences of touching the marginalized in a very real way leave one with a sense of compassion and zeal to join the struggle to alleviate the suffering of the disenfranchised.
“We know what it means to confront unjust systems that leave many crying out in hunger while others are simply unaware of their plight,” she said.