Pope Leo XIV's old diocese at
Chiclayo in Peru on Thursday recalled how the then Cardinal
Robert Prevost had worked tirelessly when the area was hit by a
cyclone in 2023.
Solidarity with the poor, attention to listening, great
collaboration, this is how Msgr. Guillermo Antonio Cornejo
Monzón, auxiliary bishop of Lima, and current president of
Caritas Peru, remembers the qualities of Msgr. Robert Francis
Prevost, then bishop of Chiclayo and today successor of Peter as
Pope Leo XIV.
"During the cyclone that devastated our country, at the
beginning of 2023, Msgr. Prevost did not spare himself, he was
at the side of those who no longer had anything, a house, land
to cultivate, to work", Msgr. Cornejo told the Ancep agency, the
information body of the Peruvian Church, who recalls "the images
of the bishop who went out into the streets with his boots, to
bring help to the inhabitants of northern Peru".
The auxiliary bishop of Lima, also relaunched by SIR, knows
Chiclayo well, where he was apostolic administrator between 2023
and 2024, immediately after the transfer of Msgr. Prevost to the
Vatican: with over 600,000 inhabitants, the northern city is one
of the most populated areas of the nation, where the poor, young
people and entire families move to seek a better future.
Overlooking the sea, the area is arid, inhabited by small
farmers, victims of natural disasters such as cyclone Yaku,
capable of hitting the south-eastern Pacific area and
devastating northern Peru at the beginning of March 2023.
"The people are good, generous, the food is exquisite", explains
the president of Caritas Peru, who does not hide, however, the
problems of violence and corruption present in the area.
The auxiliary bishop of Lima recalls an intense period of
activity and collaboration with the new pontiff: "He helped me a
lot, with useful advice and guidance. He was a point of
reference as a canonist. He recommended that I live synodality,
the value of social justice, attention to the poor, to follow
our realities, small and large, and to share with the priests,
as much as possible, and also with the religious, the values
;;of collegiality and communion".
He remembers the new Pope as an open person: "He listened to
everyone with respect and then gave his opinion".
"What did I feel at the moment of the election? It was a great
emotion and a surprise when he wanted to remember the diocese in
Spanish. In the Jubilee of Hope, it is one more reason to walk
together, as Leo XIV invited us to do".
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