5 similarities between Pope Leo XIV and Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo

This 2025 begins the celebrations for the 300 years of the canonization of Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo, second archbishop of Lima, tireless missionary and one of the great evangelizers of America. The anniversary takes on special relevance for the devotion that the new Pope Leo XIV professes for him, whom he considers his holy model.

In an interview with ACI Press, the missionary priest David Farfán Guerrero – Párroco of the Temple of Santo Toribio in Zaña, Peru – and Fr. Marcos Ballena Rentería, trainer of the major seminar of Chiclayo, highlights remarkable similarities between both shepherds of the Church.

1. An endearing love for the city of Zaña, in Chiclayo

For Father Farfán, a close friend of the Pope and man of his trust, Zaña is “a door to heaven” and “a sacred place”, since it was there that Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo died on March 23, 1606, after a long life of apostolic mission that also began in that same place.

“There is no Zaña without Santo Toribio, and there is no holy toribio without a zaña,” says the priest on the Spanish saint who directed the Church of Lima for almost 25 years.

This place was chosen by Pope Leo XIV-when I was still Mons. Robert Prevost, Bishop of Chiclayo (2014-2023)-as one of his most beloved prayer spaces, specifically the town of San Nicolás, where there is a humble chapel dedicated to San Nicolás de Tolentino, first holy of the order of St. Augustine and the patron saint of his solemn votes.

“This place is very special in the life of his holiness, because this is where, as I usually say, he tested his knees. ‘He barely arrived, entered and prayed to the patron saint of his perpetual profession,” said the priest.

2. The preferential option for the poorest

Santo Toribio was a direct witness to the suffering of the enslaved in Zaña. During recent excavations to build a well for the parish they found Human skeletons of African origin.

“I would not be surprised that on his first visit, Santo Toribio has witnessed how the enslaved blacks lived in the barracks. That surely led him to deepen his love for the last ones,” says Fr. Farfán.

In addition, Santo Toribio always sought the correction of customs, showing a deep interest in education. He ordered the teaching in Quechua and Aymara, as well as the edition of Catechisms in these languages, becoming one of the pioneers of intercultural education in Latin America.

He had a special predilection for the sick, whom he visited frequently, and his generosity led him to distribute to the poor everything he possessed.

Fr. Farfán says that Mons. Prevost “shared that same sensitivity”, translating it into concrete actions. Among them, he founded a parish school in Zaña, seeing the educational urgency in the region, and motivated after having seen two children walk several kilometers to reach their school. “There were many difficulties in accessing studies. He saw that need and acted,” says the priest.

The then Bishop of Chiclayo also led social assistance campaigns during the Covid-19 (2021) pandemic and after flooding in the north of the country (2023); He promoted popular dining rooms to combat poverty, and even personally served lunch to his brothers in need.

3. Missionaries with their feet on the ground and heart in heaven

Both share a characteristic: their spirituality is not merely contemplative, but oriented to missionary action, according to Father Farfán.

A peculiarity of the Episcopate of Santo Toribio was his pastoral zeal. He toured on foot all the territory of his archdiocese twice (and died during his third tour), an easy task if he considered that he included rugged and dangerous land, much of them in the Andes.

“Pope Leo XIV, having Toribio as his holy model, has been a pastor with his feet on the ground and heart in heaven. He has tried to be Old Christ For us priests and for all the parishioners such as Toribio, ”says Father Farfán.

Pope Leo XIV left his homeland in the United States to surrender to pastoral service in Peru, especially in the Diocese of Chiclayo. “Like the great missionaries of history, he knew how to embody the gospel in a culture other than his, with humility, closeness and deep love for the people to whom he was sent,” added Fr. Farfán.

Santo Toribio is not only known for having defended the rights of the indigenous peoples of Peru, but also visited and lived with his people. He learned to speak their languages ​​so that they could really understand the gospel. Similarly, according to Fr. Farfán, Mons. Prevost learned Quechua to communicate with the faithful of the Sierra in the Lambayeque region.

“Monsignor sought to embody Santo Toribio in his teachings and in his walk, because Santo Toribio reached all the places and he also reached all places,” Father Marcos Balena Rentería, trainer of the Chiclayo Major Seminary, told ACI Press.

“At 10 in the morning, Monsignor could celebrate Mass in the mountain range of our diocese, which is Santa Cruz – a province of Cajamarca that also attends Chiclayo –; at 4 or 6 in the afternoon, could be celebrating Mass in the Cathedral; already 8 at night, having a meeting in some parish, all in the same day. It was completely given to the people,” he added.

4. Intellectuals at the service of God

Before being a tireless bishop, Santo Toribio was a distinguished academic and lawyer. But he always let God’s will – and not prestige, honors or human comfort – molded his life.

He was an intelligent man who began his university studies in the Spanish city of Valladolid and completed them at the University of Salamanca. His talent caught the attention of the Spanish Court, and King Felipe II appointed him judge of the Inquisition in Granada, to the other end of the country.

His distinction led the same king to propose it to the Pope as Archbishop of Lima, something unusual for two reasons: Lima was the most important diocese of Spanish America, and Toribio was still a layman. Pope Gregory XIII accepted the proposal, and Toribio underwent humility, being ordained a deacon, then priest and finally bishop. His episcopal consecration took place in 1580, and arrived in Lima on May 24, 1581.

Pope Leo XIV, meanwhile, is also a brilliant intellectual at the service of God. He began his training in the Minor Seminar of the Augustinian parents and obtained titles in Mathematical Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Villanova (USA). Later he completed a master’s degree in divinity with an emphasis on intercultural mission at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.

At 27 he was sent to Rome to study Canon Law at the Pontifical Santo Tomás University of Aquinas (Angelicum). Two years later he obtained a degree in Canon Law, and in 1987 he received the doctorate with mention Great with praisewith a thesis on the role of the prior local in the order of San Agustín.

In addition to his solid training, he cultivated a constant and disciplined intellectual life. “Monsignor Robert liked reading.

“For example, when I had to wait or travel – and he frequently traveled to Lima for his work as the second vice president of the Episcopal Conference, Oa Rome, as a member of the Dicaster for the clergy – used to read to an entire book at the airport,” he says.

According to Fr. Ballena, he was especially interested in current books, faith and priestly formation, as well as those related to human values ​​and the thought of St. Augustine. He also read carefully the Vatican documents; Many times I reviewed them in Italian or other languages ​​before they arrived translated into Spanish, because it dominates five languages.

On his last trip to Rome, when he had to leave the diocese of Chiclayo, he donated to the seminar between five and six suitcases with books: about 200 in total. “They are books that I had read or that had been given to him, and decided to leave them as an inheritance for the seminarians,” says the trainer.

5. A deeply Mariana spirituality

According to the book The blessed Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo, Archbishop of Lima. History of his admirable life, virtues and miraclesToribio cultivated a deep Marian piety: “With the love of Son venerated the always Virgin Mary and with a tender affection he loved her praying her divine trade every day, to which she added many prayers and preces, and by crown of her devotions the rosary, without in any day she missed this.”

Both Pope Leo XIV and Santo Toribio place the Virgin Mary in the center of her spirituality. Father Farfán remembers about Robert Prevost: “He had in a balance on the one hand, to San Nicolás de Tolentino – protector of the Pope’s religious profession; and on the other hand, to Santo Toribio, his pastoral model. And to the center of that balance, the Virgin Mary.”

“For both, everything is ordered under the lordship of Jesus Christ and the maternal protection of Mary,” said the presbyter.