Top photo caption: A silicone statue of Pope Leo XIV, created by Peruvian artist Walt Wizard, stands outside a church in Lima, Peru, Oct. 28, 2026, ahead of Pope Leo’s Nov. 6–17 apostolic journey to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. OSV News photo/Stifs Paucca, Reuters
By Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News
OSV News – Standing on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in May 2025, Pope Leo XIV addressed Catholics around the world with a message of peace and a call for Christians to “journey together toward the homeland that God has prepared for us.”
Prior to his election, he served in Rome for roughly two years as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. Yet, during his first speech, his thoughts were not far from the place he called home for over two decades.
“And if you also allow me a brief word, a greeting to everyone and in particular to my beloved Diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru, where a faithful people has accompanied its bishop, shared its faith and given so much, so much, to continue being a faithful Church of Jesus Christ,” the Pope said.
The final leg of Pope Leo’s three-country tour in Latin America will take the American-born pontiff to his adopted homeland, and his arrival not as a local bishop but as Supreme Pontiff will likely be the most anticipated event.
For the people of Peru, the apostolic visit is not just a welcoming of the Vicar of Christ; it’s the return of a missionary, a neighbor, a shepherd who understood the realities of those who lived there, particularly the poor and the marginalized.
His return, just a little over a year after his election, means Peru is not merely hosting a pontiff, but celebrating a homecoming for someone whose experiences there shaped his vision for the universal Church.
– The mission –
Then-Father Robert Prevost first stepped on Peruvian soil in 1985, serving as a parish priest in Chulucanas.
In Elise Allen’s biography of the pontiff, Pope Leo recalled his arrival, which was a year after devastating floods had engulfed the region and “roads were destroyed still.”
“It was an extremely poor situation, very different from what it is even today, and there was a part of me that was looking around and saying, ‘Lord, where have You brought me?'”
Prior to his arrival, the Pope had lived in Rome for four years and “loved it.” Not long after his arrival in Chulucanas, however, he was hospitalized for typhoid fever and recalled thinking, “God, either make me better or take me, because this is awful.”
Noting that the clinic he was taken to was called “Clinica Roma,” the Pope said he knew that God had a sense of humor when it came to him missing the Eternal City.
“It was difficult to leave Rome because anywhere I’ve lived, I really invest,” the Pope told Allen. “So, He takes me from Rome to Peru, which was a huge difference, and I end up in the ‘Clinica Roma,’ saying, ‘All right, God, I got the point.'”
That moment, so soon after his arrival, marked a turning point as he fully embraced his mission and the country he would call home.
From that point, he grew close to his parishioners. In the Vatican News documentary on the Pope’s life in Peru, “Leon de Peru,” one parishioner, Hector Camacho, recalled visiting the future Pope at the parish and noticing that he was sad.
Camacho recalled then-Father Prevost telling him that he was traveling to the United States because his mother, Mildred, had died. Moved by the priest’s grief, Camacho told him his wife was pregnant and asked if he could name his daughter after his late mother and asked him to serve as the child’s godfather, which the future Pope accepted.
“I’m sure he will do great work for everyone around the world,” Camacho told Vatican News, “because I’m sure wherever there is war, he will bring peace, wherever there is discord, he will bring love. Because he has those qualities, those traits, he has a positive aura.”
Those early years in Peru, including serving in Trujillo as a formator for the Augustinians, forged his pastoral instincts as he learned to listen and immersed himself in the realities of poverty and rural migration.
He was elected Augustinian prior general in 2001, which led him back to Rome until 2013. He returned briefly to Chicago, and although he would eventually return to his adopted homeland, it was not exactly the way he thought it would be.
– An unexpected appointment –
In 2014, Pope Francis named him apostolic administrator of Chiclayo; an appointment that his would-be successor did not expect.
Pope Leo told Allen that when the late pontiff served as archbishop of Buenos Aires, he and then-Father Prevost, while he served as prior general, had a slight disagreement.
“He (Pope Francis) had asked me – it had to do with personnel issues – and I made decisions which were contrary to what he had asked,” the Pope recalled. “So, when he became Pope, I thought to myself, ‘Well, he knows who I am; he’s not going to call me to be a bishop, because he knows I’ll say no to him,’ depending what the issue is.”
Yet, when Pope Francis named him to Chiclayo, the future pontiff said his predecessor told him that he remembered then-Father Prevost siding with him against an official at the Holy See.
“I stood up to someone in the Holy See, and when I was finishing as prior general, he said, ‘I’ll never forget what you did on that occasion.’ And he apparently didn’t forget,” Pope Leo recalled.
Chiclayo was a delicate post for then-Bishop Prevost. In an interview with the National Catholic Reporter, Emeritus Bishop Dan Turley of Chulucanas said the diocese was “considered an Opus Dei diocese” and Pope Francis’ appointment of the Augustinian missionary was his way of asserting that “this is a diocesan diocese and as Pope I can name whoever I want.”
Much like his style as Pope, then-Bishop “Roberto,” as he was called, did not set about imposing top-down decrees but adopted an open-door, consultative leadership style typical of Augustinian roots.
Opus Dei member Aldo Llanos, a professor of philosophy and anthropology in the University of Piura, told OSV News in May 2025 that “In Chiclayo, Opus Dei runs programs for family and youth formation. Bishop Prevost knew us, trusted us. When he left, during an informal meeting we had with him, he told us that he had never met people who worked so hard – and who were so obedient to their bishop.”
Peruvians most appreciated his commitment to those in need, especially during the catastrophic 2017 El Niño coastal floods that ravaged the Lambayeque region. The American bishop was on the front lines, visiting affected areas and mobilizing business leaders to donate money and supplies.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, Peru had one of the highest per capita mortality rates in the world, with over 213,000 deaths recorded until July 2022.
As hospitals in northern Peru faced oxygen shortages, then-Bishop Prevost rallied civic leaders and launched “Oxygen of Hope,” a Caritas Chiclayo campaign that raised enough funds to purchase two oxygen plants that provided free medical oxygen to residents.
His calm style of governance, coupled with his knack for problem-solving, once again caught Pope Francis’s attention, and he was also named apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Callao in April 2020.
The appointment was an added challenge for then-Bishop Prevost, who had to contend not only with managing the Chiclayo diocese amid the pandemic, but also with a diocese engulfed in internal conflicts and divisions between its former bishop, Bishop José Luis del Palacio, and priests and laity.
A member of the Neocatechumenal Way, Bishop del Palacio faced growing complaints about his centralized governance and financial mismanagement, as well as for alienating clergy and faithful who did not belong to the ecclesial movement.
This led the Vatican to accept his resignation early and task then-Bishop Prevost with restoring institutional stability and morale.
Over the course of a year, then-Bishop Prevost focused on direct dialogue with disgruntled clergy, initiated administrative and financial reviews, and helped steady the diocese until Pope Francis appointed Bishop Luis Alberto Barrera Pacheco to take over the see in April 2021.
– A ‘disarmed and disarming’ hope –
Pope Leo’s return to his adopted home comes at a delicate time for the country, which earlier this year elected Keiko Fujimori as its ninth president in 10 years. As is the case in many countries, Peru was not immune to the polarization that has gripped politics worldwide and has seen massive protests from people burdened by high costs.
Meanwhile, the Vatican’s recent announcement that the Pope will meet with abuse victims during his visit was viewed with cautious optimism by victims’ advocates in the country.
While grateful for then-Bishop Prevost’s support of victims of the now-defunct Sodalitium Christian Vitae movement, Peruvian survivors expressed concern that the Catholic Church has made slow progress in fully suppressing the lay movement’s presence in parishes.
Nevertheless, for many, the visit from someone they consider “the first Peruvian Pope” brings a much-needed respite from the political and societal divisions in the country.
Pope Leo “will find a country increasingly ‘battered and broken,’ where people wander ‘like sheep without a shepherd,’ as it is written in the Gospel of Matthew,” Cardinal Pedro Barreto Jimeno, the retired archbishop of Huancayo, said in an interview with Religion Digital published Nov. 1.
“We are a country without hope, without horizons to inspire us,” the cardinal said. “Pope Leo XIV’s presence and message will encourage the Peruvian people and institutions to create a space for dialogue that is ‘disarmed and disarming,’ respecting the dignity of every human person and seeking the common good.”
Junno Arocho Esteves is an international correspondent for OSV News. Follow him on X @jae_journalist.
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