Leo Worked Tirelessly During Peru Cyclone Says Old Diocese

Chiclayo: 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.

According to Ansa News Agency, Msgr. Guillermo Antonio Cornejo Monz³n, auxiliary bishop of Lima and current president of Caritas Peru, remembered 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. He recalled “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 southeastern Pacific area and devastating northern Peru at the beginning of March 2023.

“The people are good, generous, the food is exquisite,” explained the president of Caritas Peru, who did not hide the problems of violence and corruption present in the area. The auxiliary bishop of Lima recalled 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 remembered 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.”