Leo XIV prays again before the saint who inspired his episcopal ministry

-By Inés San Martín, editor of MISSION magazine and co-host of the Spanish-language podcast «Deciphering León». 

When Pope Leo XIV arrives at the Sanctuary of Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo in Zaña, Peru, on November 14, the paths of two missionary bishops separated by more than four centuries will symbolically converge.

Both were born outside of Peru. Both came to serve a country whose people and cultures they had to learn to understand. Both traveled beyond the centers of power to reach communities scattered across a vast and diverse territory. And both came to consider Peru their own.

The Vatican's itinerary anticipates that the Pope will be at the shrine at 5:30 pm on November 14 for a prayer meeting with the Catholic community, which will mark the conclusion of the jubilee year for the 300th anniversary of the canonization of Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo.

The shrine in Zaña is the third and final stop on Pope Leo XIII's first apostolic journey to Latin America, following the national Marian shrines of Uruguay and Argentina. His visit to Peru, from November 11 to 16, will also take him to Lima, Chiclayo, Santa Cruz de Succhabamba, Cusco, and Pucallpa.

Papal tribute to a model bishop

For Pope Leo, the stop in the small town of Zaña, in the Diocese of Chiclayo, will have a deeply personal character: a return to a sanctuary where he prayed repeatedly when he was bishop of the diocese, and to a saint whose example helped shape his understanding of the episcopal ministry.

Before his episcopal ordination in December 2014, Father Robert Prevost spent time in prayer in Zaña, entrusting the new ministry that awaited him to the saint. He continued to return, sometimes for diocesan events and other times simply to pray.

Gloria Burga, a lay collaborator in Zaña, told OSV News that, as bishop, he reserved April 27, the feast day of Saint Toribio, to celebrate Mass at the sanctuary.

Born in Spain in 1538, Toribio de Mogrovejo was a layman with a legal background when King Philip II appointed him Archbishop of Lima. He was ordained a priest and bishop before arriving in Peru in 1581 to lead an ecclesiastical province that at the time encompassed much of Spanish-speaking South America.

During his 25 years as archbishop, he dedicated approximately 17 years to pastoral visits, traveling more than 25,000 miles, often on foot or by mule, across the Andes to reach remote Indigenous communities. He convened councils and synods, founded a seminary, confronted abuses by colonial authorities, and defended the dignity of Indigenous peoples.

Under his leadership, the Third Council of Lima produced a catechism in Spanish, Quechua, and Aymara.

He died in Zaña on Holy Thursday, March 23, 1606, during one of those journeys. He was canonized in 1726 and later named patron saint of the bishops of Latin America.

Zaña itself was once an important colonial city, but it was devastated by a flood in 1720 and never fully recovered. It is also a significant center of Afro-Peruvian history: enslaved Africans were brought to work on its colonial estates, and their descendants shaped its culture, music, and religious traditions. UNESCO recognized Zaña in 2017 as a site of memory of slavery and African cultural heritage.

For Cardinal Robert Prevost, devotion to Saint Toribio is something personal.

In a letter dated September 8, on the occasion of the third centenary of the canonization of Saint Toribio, Pope Leo directly related the saint's experience to his own.

«There I came to know firsthand the faith of a people from whom I received much,» the Pope wrote, referring to Peru.

That experience, he said, taught him more fully what it meant to be a pastor and brought him especially closer to Saint Toribio, another bishop who had «come from afar» and had made Peru his own through pastoral charity.

Addressing the bishops of Latin America, the Pope wrote that some realities within a diocese are impossible to understand from behind a desk. A bishop, he said, must meet personally with the communities, listen to his flock, and seek out those who rarely have access to him—with his heart turned toward heaven and his feet firmly on the ground.

«The best way to honor his memory,» Pope Leo told the bishops, "is to be challenged by his ministry and to imitate it.".

Father David Farfán Guerrero, rector of the sanctuary for the last 11 years, saw how that model took shape in the future Pope.

The then Bishop Prevost welcomed him to the Diocese of Chiclayo, and in July the priest published «Footprints of a Shepherd,» a book that traces Father Prevost's path from Chicago to the papacy and compares his life to that of Saint Toribio.

«He was so approachable and attentive,» Father Farfán told OSV News. «More than a superior, he was like an older brother in the priesthood. That’s what impressed me most.» What struck him, he said, was the way Bishop Prevost combined personal closeness with the exercise of authority.

«For me, it was an opportunity to realize that it really is possible to exercise authority with love, charity, faith, and hope,» he said.

The Pope's Peruvian past

Father Prevost first arrived in Peru in 1985 as a young Augustinian missionary. His work took him to Chulucanas and Trujillo before he became apostolic administrator and, later, bishop of Chiclayo, a diocese he led until 2023. He became a naturalized Peruvian citizen in 2015.

Images of him in rubber boots, wading through floodwaters in Chiclayo after heavy rains, became a symbol of his ministry. But Father Farfán pointed out that this response was based on his early years as a missionary.

«I had already experienced that in Chulucanas, the first place I lived,» he said. «Chiclayo was, in a sense, putting into practice what I had already learned.».

The diocese that Bishop Prevost led encompassed everything from coastal communities to Andean parishes thousands of feet above sea level, and Father Farfan noted that the bishop viewed those differences as gifts that could unite the Church.

«He never considered differences as something that simply had to be tolerated,» he said. «He saw them as a challenge and as a source of greater richness.».

During the COVID-19 pandemic, coastal parishes shared rice through Caritas, while highland communities contributed potatoes.

«He helped us a lot in times of need,» said Burga, a lay collaborator in Zaña. “For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched the ‘Aguadito with Faith’ initiative, and the Pope helped us with rice and other important ingredients so we could feed the hungry.» Aguadito is a traditional Peruvian chicken soup.

Regardless of the region, Father Farfán said, Father Prevost would ask his priests the same questions: «What are your parishioners experiencing and how is the Church responding?».

For the priest, the Pope's decision to include a small, often overlooked town alongside the major cities on his trip has its own significance.

«The Holy Father’s presence in Zaña is a profound message for us,» he said. «God creates perfect works in imperfect places, in difficult and remote places where he makes it possible for his infinite love to be revealed.».

On November 14, Pope Leo will not only honor a saint from Peru's colonial past. The successor of St. Peter will return to a place of prayer associated with the beginning of his own
episcopal ministry is already a model of missionary leadership that it has now offered to bishops across a continent.