Upon turning 43 years of priesthood, Pope Leo XIV is still remembered with love in the parishes of northern Peru where he began his pastoral path as a Friar Agustino.
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One of those communities is the Sagrada Familia cathedral, in the Diocese of Chulucanas (Piura regionin northern Peru), where the young Augustine Fraile was a missionary between 1985 and 1986 and usually celebrated the Eucharist.
“He was a very simple man. For us it is a tremendous joy that he is the Pope,” he said excitedly To Ewtn NewsMaría Flores, secretary of the Cathedral, by evoking the then “Father Roberto”, who is still remembered with love for the local faithful.
Very close to there, in the San José Obrero parish, the faithful and an enthusiastic group of acolytes also served. One of them, José Luis Suárez, clearly recalls those years: “I was 12 years old. We shared meetings with the Monaguillos of the Sagrada Familia. Father Roberto was an excellent priest.”
His pastoral path later took him to Trujilloabout 480 kilometers south. In this city rich in history and traditions, the now Pope Leo XIV promoted an active and missionary youth pastoral. Together with other Augustinians, he promoted the “NIP Plan” – new image of parish -, with the aim of reaching those who were far from faith.
Alicia Azabache, a secular who met him in 1990 in the youth pastoral, says: “We always had food to distribute the poorest people, used clothes and also cooked with them.”
Thus was born the community that would later become the Santa Rita de Casia parish, founded by P. Prevost. According to Alicia, today in charge of the parish office, it was he who chose the name in honor of the great Santa Agustina.
The trace of his work also remained in the parish Our Lady of Monserrate, erected in 1994. The parish archives recorded it as a foundation of the Augustinians, with Fr. Roberto as his first parish administrator.
“I always assumed challenges. We were lucky to have it good time with us and enjoy it,” recalls the parishioner Socorro Casarot.
Mónica Ríos, who met the future Pope when she was a teenager, describes him as a “close, humble person with a great vocation of service”, especially towards young people.
When Father Prevost said goodbye to the parish in 1999, the young people prepared an emotional surprise: at the end of the Mass, they entered one by one with letters that formed the phrase Roberto, God bless youwhile they sang the song Amigo by Roberto Carlos. “He excited him a lot, he didn’t expect it,” Monica recalls.
Today, in the parish Our Lady of Monserrate, a mural full of messages written by hand express the affection of the faithful to who was their first pastor. “Thank you for being our first pastor. It is in our prayers,” reads one of them.
These experiences in Peruvian parishes deeply marked the priestly and pastoral formation of the now Pope Leo XIV. Today, as the successor of Peter, his mission is to envive faith in all the parishes of the world, “in a single soul and a single heart towards God,” as his spiritual father, Saint Augustine of Hippo wanted.
Diego López Marina
I was born in 1991. I have a degree in Communication Sciences. Since 2015 I work as a digital journalist. I started my career in the newspaper El Comercio in Peru. In 2016, I began as editor in ACI Press and I perform as a web editor since 2018. From 2024, I write the Newsletter for Social Media. I specialize in Catholic news focused on the defense of life and family, international politics, technology, popular culture and the Vatican.