“What a humble man, is the word that best defines him. The bishop also came to eat with us in the popular church dining room. And so many other things.” The testimony of this woman, one of the workers of the bishopric who has shared tAnto lunches with XIV lionadd to the torrent of pride that overflowed on Thursday when the Pope’s white smoking and Chiclayocapital of the Northern Lambayeque, before the eyes of the world.
“My dear Diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru, where a faithful people have accompanied his bishop (between 2015 and 2023), has shared his faith and has given so much,” the new Pope pondered for the joy of Chiclayanos and Peruvians. And in Spanish, not in English, his native language, but not that of his heart.
From Chicago to Chiclayo, immediately immortalized the US Embassy in Peru The vital journey of the Padreito Robertoas they still call him in the city of friendship. More Padreito than Monsignor, because of his proximity to a town that has still to be used to call this humble, austere, charismatic but introverted missionary, according to the testimonies collected by the world.
Chiclayo celebrates the choice of “His Pope” Leo XIV.Efe
In Chiclayo there are no doubt: the new Pope is more Peruvian than anything else, for the heart and because it was more than half a life in these lands. The same happens in Chulucanastown near Piura where the young man Robert Prevost He debuted as a missionary, just arrived in 1985 from his native US after finishing his studies. AND Trujilloalso in the north, and in the port of Callao, near Lima.
Four decades in Peruvian territory and the National Identity Document granted in 2015 certified that the second American Pope of the Catholic church It is another Latin.
The multiple testimonies arising help to measure the human wingspan of the successor of Francisco, the Saint of the North, as they also call him here for his tireless work for the most disadvantaged. Today everyone claims him carried out by pride in this coastal city. It is not enough to say, as so many times, that the bishop left its mark, insufficient stereotype to portray in all its dimension the legacy left by Prevost in Chiclayo, which he abandoned just two years ago to go to the call of Bergoglio.
It was precisely Franciscoduring the predict of 2013, who spoke about the peripheries, the geographical, the religious and the social. And if according to your idea Buenos Aires And its misery villas were part of that periphery, what to say about Chiclayo, 768 kilometers from Lima, 521 from the border with Ecuador. Padreito Roberto lived in the Bishopric, adjacent to the Santa María Cathedralin one of its rooms, austere, with a lattice as distinctive sign. So far from the sumptuous palaces that have undermined the faith of believers.
His work was out of those walls, where he needed the most, where pain and hunger are so everyday that they look like life itself. Nelson Segura He transferred Monsignor to popular areas, such as victory. “He liked to talk about football, complained about our team’s disaster, the Northern Cyclone (Juan Aurich Club), which has come down,” recalls this driver. In his routes he never mentioned him about the conquests of the Bulls of the NBA or of the Major Leaguesboth of their city. His heart had already changed.
“Of course, it is very good tooth, he loves the ceviche we do here, the rice with duck and the cabrillo. But you never saw him in expensive or elegant restaurants, even often ate in the popular dining room that the church has next to the bishopric,” confirms safely.
“Always giving, it helped us all,” adds Maria, who sells sandwiches and oats a few meters from the bishopric. The Padreito was also delivered to the aid of Venezuelan emigrants, arriving massively to the northern city in their escape from Chavismo. Monsignor created shelters for the exiles of Venezuela, more than one and a half million throughout the Andean country, who joined the network of social dining rooms that he also launched.
The room in which Robert Prevost lived in Chiclayo.Daniel LozanoE.M.
Personal stories go from mouth and are so many that there were several Premost bishops instead of one. “The man with a sheep smell”as the current bishop says, Edinson Farfán, to highlight his constant work among the needy. The Premost church was not open doors: it simply has no doors.
This was demonstrated when Chiclayo fell like a biblical plague Pandemia del Covidwith images very similar to those seen in Guayaquil, in neighboring Ecuador, with corpses thrown into the streets that no one could collect. It was then that the figure of the Monsignor Roberto emerged. “Unforgettable,” they agree with each other. The bishop, with a mask included, He toured the streets of Chiclayo with four priests, blessing from distance to his people. They looked like apocalyptic processions.
“Monsignor set out to build an oxygen plant to combat the COVID and in the end he managed to install two. How to imagine what he can get for everyone,” the priest describes with hope Fidel Purisaca At the gates of the bishopric. The oxygen initiative saved hundreds of patients at the worst time of pandemic. In his endless routes from then on the hospitals he gave Rosarios blessed by Francisco to the patients infected with Covid.
If there is a difficult mixture, it is that which Board Charisma and humility. From both, Prevost is left, as confirmed in the multiple files that have emerged in these hours on social networks, such as when in Christmas 2014 he did not hesitate to contribute the gringa version of Merry Christmas, a microphone in hand, to delight of the boys of the parish.
More emotional was the farewell made by its parishioners two years ago, when Francisco decided that Prevost headed as a prefect the dicas supplies for bishops, transcendental because marks the line of government of the Church: select the new bishops before the papal decision.
Leo XIV abandoned Chiclayo but not his people: promoted an express campaign in favor of those affected by torrential rains. And in 2023 it was appointed cardinala meteoric career for Francisco’s cover, who has also headed the fight in the Vatican to recognize the Eucharistic miracle of Ciudad Etén, in Chiclayo, the only one of this type in Peru. The new Pope presented to the Holy See 20,000 testimonies of faith collected from the alleged miracle happened in 1649, when the Infant Jesus appeared in a consecrated host. Since then the miracle child is venerated in Peru.
“We are excited, happy. It is the best for Chiclayo and for him, someone who did so much for the community. That’s why you are here, because the eyes of the world have been looking for us for a few hours,” Alberto Berrillas rounded to this correspondent, 30 years selling newspapers a few meters from the cathedral. “Native Pope!” He shouted on his cover one of the newspapers. For this Saturday a great thanksgiving Mass is scheduled to the outskirts of the cathedral.
