Pope! Amigo! Peruvians remember the young American pope

Pope! Amigo! Peruvians remember the young American pope

Chiclayo, Peru – Chiclayo's main plaza was bustling with activity. The sounds of hammers and music filled the air as people gathered expectantly around the stage with large digital screens set up in front of the city cathedral. Saturday's open mass promised to be particularly festive: It celebrated the elevation of Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope - better known here as Robert, the first Chiclayano pope.

An unforgettable event

A line of women formed through the open doors of the cathedral, preparing to speak to confession. A children's choir sang on the steps while two men in shorts led a dance class that fought for attention with the deep bass of secular music on the street. Banners depicting the smiling face of Leo hung across the plaza, its 10-foot-tall depiction reminding people of the evening to come. A local restaurant had a sign advertising its popular goat stew, which was said to be Leo's favorite dish when he lived here.

A prayer for a miracle

At the cathedral, Amalia Cruzado, 52, sat in the pews and cried quietly as she stretched out her arms.

"It's a day of miracles. Chiclayo is so blessed," she said. After her prayer, she would go home and pick up her family to attend evening mass together; her elderly father, who was suffering from cancer, desperately needed a miracle for his health.

The roots of Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo was born Robert Prevost in the United States, but to his adopted nation of Peru, where he acquired citizenship in 2015, he is a Chiclayano, a son of the bustling northern Peru city where he served as bishop for years after working as a priest in the countryside.

Memories of childhood

Everyone here has a story about him. In the 1980s, Nicanor Palacios was an altar boy alongside Leo during his early priesthood in nearby Piura and traveled with him to services. “As a young priest, he was often sent into the field,” recalled Palacios, who now works as a technician in the Air Force. “He took us to lunch in the parish Jeep.”

"It wasn't hard for him to fit in. At that time there was a small village called Kilometer 50 on the Panama Road. There he took us for dried meat and fried plantains. He liked that kind of food and the rural environment. He ate like a farmer from northern Peru: yuca, fried fish, maybe a bite of fried meat."

“I appreciated his advice the most, because a lot of young people lost themselves at that time, but he was a young man, 24 or 25 years old, very serious and full of advice,” said Palacios, whose mother died early and to whom Leo and the other altar boys became a second family.