Lima (AFP) – Living almost two decades in Peru marked the life of Robert Prevost before becoming Pope Leo XIV. There he accompanied the poor, raised his voice against the excesses of power and developed his environmental awareness.

First modification: 05/11/2026 - 14:53

"I love Peru very much, the Peruvian people, so that is part of who I am," the pontiff said. American, naturalized Peruvian, to the journalist Elise Ann Allen, author of a biography.

These are the key moments of his passage through what he considers his adopted homeland.

"Father Roberto" in Piura

Robert Prevost was around thirty years old when he arrived in Peru in 1985 as a missionary sent by the Augustinian order. His task was to initiate the transformation into a diocese of the small prelature of Chulucanas, then a district with a lot of poverty in Piura (north).

"His approach to poverty would have been different without knowing Peru and putting his feet in the mud, because it is not the same in the United States," theologian Véronique Lecaros, author of a book about Prevost's time in Peru, told AFP.

In Chulucanas the population welcomes him with affection and castilizes his name to call him "father Roberto."

Two months after arriving, he fell ill with typhoid fever and was hospitalized for the first time in his life, according to what he himself told Allen.

In 1986 he returned to the United States, where he would later take charge of the vocations and missions of his order.

Trujillo, violence

He returned to the Andean country in 1988, this time to the agroindustrial city of Trujillo, about 550 kilometers north of Lima. It will be his longest stay in Peru, until 1999.

There he directs the training of Augustinian religious and teaches classes at a large local seminary, where future priests are trained.

He also serves as parish priest and head of the ecclesiastical tribunal of the diocese.

Peru is then experiencing one of the most turbulent periods in its recent history due to the violence of the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla responsible for massacres and attacks.

In August 1991, this group murdered three foreign priests - two Poles and one Italian - in Ancash, also in the north of the country.

The Augustinian order suggests abandoning Peru to the foreign friars. Prevost is even offered a bodyguard.

"I told them no. I don't look like the typical gringo (...), I have a slightly darker complexion," the pope told Allen in 2025. "It was very important to stay next to the people we served."

In 1999 he returned to the United States as head of the Augustinians in Chicago, his hometown.

- Chiclayo, "my dear diocese"

After a hiatus of 15 years, Peru reappears on its path. And again he arrives in a northern province.

In November 2014, Pope Francis elevated him to the rank of bishop and appointed him apostolic administrator of Chiclayo.

Prevost formally assumed the bishopric of that important diocese in 2015, for which he acquired Peruvian nationality that same year.

In one of his first acts he participated in a beatification mass for the three priests murdered in 1991, whom the Church calls "martyrs of Catholicism."

Create a Comprehensive Ecology Commission in Chiclayo, aligned with Francis's encyclical "Laudato Si", which calls for taking care of the planet against the dangers of consumerism.

As bishop, he also faces political power. In 2017 he urged former president Alberto Fujimori, tried and imprisoned for human rights violations, to ask for "personal forgiveness" from the victims.

When his mission was about to end in 2023, he defended the right to protest, while the country was going through a serious crisis due to anti-government demonstrations that left fifty civilians dead.

In one of his last actions, that year he went to an area flooded by extreme rains, to advocate for the victims. He records a video in boots and a short shirt, with water up to his ankles and damaged houses around him, in which he calls on the population to help.

In April 2023, he moved to Rome as head of the Dicastery of Bishops, an entity in charge of pre-selecting these authorities.

© 2026 AFP

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