Pope Leo gets down to business in Peru after emotional, 3 million-strong homecoming

LIMA, Peru (AP) — After his emotional homecoming , Pope Leo XIV got down to work Thursday giving marching orders to the country’s Catholic bishops as they face a myriad of pressures, from poverty and injustices in their flocks to the clergy sexual abuse scandal in their own ranks.

Peruvians turned out in droves to catch a glimpse of Leo, with crowds outside the church residence where he is staying and an even bigger crowd gathered at the central Plaza de Armas where he had his first events Thursday. Leo thrilled the crowd by looping around the plaza in his popemobile before accepting the keys to the city from Lima's mayor.

At every turn, Leo has been serenaded by a children’s choir belting out a catchy tune composed especially for his trip, accompanied by Andean flutes: “Papa León, hermano del camino, Papa León, sembrador de fraternidad." (“Pope Leo, brother on the journey, Pope Leo, sower of brotherhood.”)

Leo had a busy agenda in Lima with meetings first with the country’s bishops at the archbishop’s residence. He then was to preside over a morning prayer with Peruvian priests, nuns, seminarians and lay church teams next door at Lima’s cathedral.

His first encounter with ordinary Peruvians was to come during an encounter in the plaza facing the cathedral before presiding over a youth vigil in the evening at Lima's stadium.

As he showed in the first two legs of his South American trip, Leo was in fine form despite having undergone lung cancer surgery last month. He bounded up a steep flight of stairs Thursday morning without any apparent problems and joked with the bishops that some “doubting Thomases” had predicted he wouldn’t be able to come.

“But God is great and his grace is bigger than all of us and I'm very happy to be here with you,” he said to applause.

Citing local authorities, the Vatican estimated that some 3 million people had lined Leo's motorcade route on Wednesday to welcome “Padre Robert” home. The Chicago-born pope, who also has Peruvian citizenship, responded with an emotional ode to all that Peru had given him.

The former Robert Prevost spent two decades as a missionary priest and bishop in Peru and credits the place with teaching him how to be a shepherd. He in many ways has modeled his vocation as a bishop on the 16th century St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, the first archbishop of Lima.

Mogrovejo is revered for having traveled long distances to be with his flock and for having defended the rights of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. He studied Quechua and Aymara and oversaw the printing of the Catechism of the Catholic Church in these Indigenous languages, because he believed the faith had to be transmitted in the language people could understand.

“I have received so much from you,” Leo told President Keiko Fujimori in his first public address Wednesday night. “There are faces, conversations, and gestures of affection that, even after so many years, continue to stay with me.”

Fujimori, for her part, praised Leo for his simple closeness to his flock.

“There are people who arrive in a country and end up becoming part of its history, winning the affection of the people through their simplicity, their willingness to listen, and their presence when they are needed most,” she said. “That is how he learned to love Peru, and Peru learned to love him,” she told a gathering of government officials and diplomats.

Fujimori is under fire, though, for leaving Peru for an APEC summit before Leo leaves, missing his final Mass in Lima. She announced Tuesday that she will depart for China on Nov. 15 to meet President Xi Jinping. On Wednesday, her foreign minister Carlos Espá defended Fujimori from criticism, saying she worked hard to organize the pontiff’s visit and will attend other events.

Peruvian Cardinal Pedro Barreto, the president of the Amazonian bishops conference, said Leo was acutely attuned to the needs of the Peruvian people and church, and would offer words of consolation and advice during his days crisscrossing the country, from his beloved Chiclayo in the north to the Andes and rainforest.

“Leo will listen to the anguish and hopes of the Indigenous peoples, especially the pain caused by the violence affecting girls, boys, adolescents, and young people,” said Barreto, who was close friends with both Prevost and his predecessor, Pope Francis, a Jesuit like Barreto.

He predicted Leo would pay special attention to a recent case in the province of Condorcanqui, in the northern Peruvian jungle, where teachers sexually abused Indigenous Awajún and Wampis girls.

“Pope Leo will reaffirm the church’s commitment to continue accompanying Indigenous peoples in defending life, their dignity as persons, their cultures, and in caring for the Amazon,” Barreto said.

The Rev. Peter Hughes, an 84-year-old Irish priest who has lived in Peru for more than 60 years, said Leo was comfortable in Peru not only because he had it as his home, but because he sees its poverty and political polarization as mirroring the global situation.

“That is what makes leaders like Pope Francis and Pope Leo speak the language of the Gospel in very human terms, putting a premium on justice and peace,” he said. “In the Christian sense of justice, the most important people are the poor, the marginalized, and those who have no voice."

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