Pope Leo XIV Tells Peru’s Bishops to Accompany Flocks and Respond to Abuse Victims With Truth, Justice

Pope Leo XIV began his work in Lima on Thursday, telling Peru’s Catholic bishops to accompany their flocks as they face poverty and injustice, and to respond to victims of clergy sexual abuse with truth, justice and amends. The events followed what the Associated Press described as his emotional homecoming.

In his opening events, Leo showed that he knows the Peruvian church and people well. He named some of the biggest challenges they face and called on the influential Catholic hierarchy in particular to be models of unity and communion.

Large crowds turned out to see him. People gathered outside the church residence where he is staying, and an even bigger crowd filled the central Plaza Mayor, where he held his first events Thursday. Leo rode around the plaza in his popemobile. At each stop, a children’s choir sang a song composed for the trip, accompanied by Andean flutes, with lyrics calling him “brother on the journey” and “sower of brotherhood.”

Leo, who also holds Peruvian citizenship, appeared to be in good form despite having undergone lung cancer surgery last month. He climbed a steep flight of stairs Thursday morning without any apparent problems and joked with the bishops that some “doubting Thomases” had predicted he would not be able to come. Citing local authorities, the Vatican estimated that some 3 million people had lined his motorcade route on Wednesday.

Leo spent two decades as a missionary priest and bishop in Peru, and he has modeled his vocation as a bishop in part on St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, the 16th-century first archbishop of Lima. Mogrovejo is remembered for traveling long distances to be with his flock and for defending the rights of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. Leo urged the bishops to follow that example, describing the vocation as entering people’s homes, accompanying the sick, meeting young people, and reaching out to communities that, because of remoteness or social vulnerability, are rarely able to make their voices heard.

While the clergy sexual abuse scandal has not erupted publicly in Peru as it has in other Latin American countries, Leo identified it as a “reality that has caused us so much pain.” He said the church must respond “with truth, justice, forgiveness, making amends and an ever more resolute commitment to fostering a culture of prevention and protection for the weakest.” Protecting children and other vulnerable people from harm is a serious duty (Mark 9:42). The online database BishopAccountability has identified 77 priests, brothers, seminarians and lay consecrated people in Peru who have been publicly accused of sexually abusing minors. The organization said that number is a “small fraction” of the total, arguing that victims have not yet come forward in the overwhelmingly Catholic country, where the church wields significant influence.

Leo was expected to meet with survivors during his stay, and a protest by a victims group was also planned for later Thursday. Peruvian Cardinal Pedro Barreto, 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 travels across the country. “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,” Barreto said. 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.

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