"An almost Peruvian pope": Latin America embraces Pope Leo XIV

Buenos Aires"If you allow me, also, a word, a greeting [...] to my beloved diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru," said Robert Prevost in Spanish in his first speech as pontiff, before a crowd that gave her a standing ovation, moved, in St. Peter's Square, "where a faithful people have accompanied their bishop, shared their faith, and given so much to continue being a Church faithful to Jesus Christ."

On local television, Peruvians living in Italy, holding their country's flags, shared their emotion upon learning the identity of the new pope, who has spent almost forty years in Peru, where he was naturalized in 2015. "They didn't choose an American, and Valdivia, a journalist and professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, "they chose an American who decided to be Latin American," he points out.

"An almost Peruvian pope," said, also moved, the presenter of one of the main television networks in the Andean country.

When Robert Prevost arrived in Peru in 1985, the country was experiencing a dramatic economic crisis, known locally and regionally as "the lost decade." During the 1980s, various Latin American countries suffered crises caused by the accumulation of foreign debt, falling commodity prices, rising interest rates in industrialized countries, exchange rate depreciation, and industrial collapse. In Peru, specifically, this resulted in hyperinflation of basic goods, food shortages, massive job losses, and an increase in poverty.

In this context, Prevost arrived as a young man as a missionary in the northern Peruvian Andes, in the Piura mountains: "He spent twelve years there, and then ten more in Trujillo, training seminarians," explains Menéndez Valdivia. Later he led the diocese of Lima and from there he went to Chiclayo, where he was appointed bishop by Pope Francis.In 2023, Prevost left Peru for Rome, appointed by the Argentine pontiff as president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

In Chiclayo, Prevost was involved in the reconstruction of the environment after the passage of the meteorological phenomenon The Child, which left entire towns flooded. Menéndez Valdivia points to the practicality and "mathematician's thinking" of the then bishop, who "dedicated himself to channeling the waters, preventing and helping people who had lost their belongings," he says. "He was a person very dedicated to his surroundings, but not locked away in his surroundings," he emphasizes.

In Trujillo, meanwhile, he committed himself to defending the environment against illegal gold mining, an industry that in Peru involves vested interests, carries "waves of corruption," and, in turn, generates enormous social disparities in the communities where it operates. "If Prevost was able to manage a diocese in places like these, under complex conditions and having to balance so many things, I'm sure that at the macro level [in the Vatican], he will succeed," says Valdivia.

Controversy over an abuse case

But in Peru, there is a controversy surrounding the new pontiff, and it is an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse allegedly committed by priests under his command. Menéndez Valdivia is suspicious. "Francis dissolved the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana organization, in part, because of the cases of abuse that were found," he says, adding: "I find it difficult that, being as critical as he was on this issue, he would appoint someone with whom to work side by side who had this background."

The journalist highlights "the spontaneous joy" felt throughout the afternoon of this Thursday throughout Peru, following the news: "People were happy, as if we had won a soccer derby; everyone was talking about the 'Peruvian pope.'" "There is a lot of expectation," he notes, because "he is a well-known but non-media figure, who has kept a low profile while working in peripheral and depressed areas." Even the country's interim president, Dina Boluarte, has issued an official statement emphasizing that this is the first time that a "Peruvian citizen by choice and heart" has led the Catholic Church.

"Although he was born in the United States, he is as Latin American as many of us here," says Menéndez Valdivia, "because where you happen to be born is one thing, and where you choose to be from is another." In addition to English, Italian and Spanish, he speaks Portuguese and French, and has some knowledge of German and Latin."That could bring him very close to Africa," he says, adding: "Can you imagine a pope who arrives in Angola and speaks Portuguese, or in Senegal and speaks French?" "Not with the president," he clarifies, "but with the people."