It is already 00:00 on September 14 in Rome and Pope Leo XIV turns 70, with only a few months as the successor of St. Peter, the Catholic faithful around the world today pray in a special way for the first American and Peruvian Pope in history.
Within that framework, the Holy Father received this Saturday the new United States ambassador who presented his credentials and gave him a birthday cake.
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Fr. Jorge Millán, a Pope’s collaborator when he was a bishop of Chiclayo in northern Peru, explained to Aci Prensa that Robert Prevost used to put the celebration of Jesus Nazareno captive from Monsfú to his birthday, which falls on the same date.
In that sense, César Fernández, president of the Jesús Nazareno Captive Association of Monsfú – Rome, told ACI Press that this Sunday, September 14, they will take a great flag to the Vatican with the message “Happy birthday, Holy Father Leo XIV. Chiclayo and Monsfú await him”, in addition to typical music and dances.
“For us it is a way to return the affection that he sowed in our land,” he said.
In his first words to the world, Pope León recalled, in Spanish, his “dear Diocese of Chiclayo in Peru, where a faithful people have accompanied his bishop, has shared his faith, and has given so much, so much, to continue being a faithful church of Jesus Christ.”
Brief biography of Pope Leo XIV
Robert Francis Prevost was born on September 14, 1955 in Chicago, United States.
He entered the novitiate of the Order of San Agustín in 1977 and professed his solemn votes in 1981. He was ordained a priest on June 19, 1982 in Rome.
He obtained the titles of Mathematical Sciences and Philosophy at the University of Villanova; and the doctorate in canon law with mention Great with praise at the Angelicum University of Rome, in 1987.
He arrived in Peru in 1985, where he developed a fruitful pastoral mission in the dioceses of Chulucanas first-until 1986-and then as a trainer of Agustinos in Trujillo (1988-1999). He was elected general prior of the Agustinos in 2001, serving for twelve years at the head of the order.
Pope Francis appointed him Apostolic Administrator of Chiclayo on November 3, 2014, and bishop of the same diocese in 2015. In Peru he was also apostolic administrator of Callao.
Francisco appointed him, in January 2023, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Bishops and President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
He was chosen Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church on May 8, 2025, in the conclave in which 133 cardinals participated in the Vatican.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.