Between the prices for a quarter of chicken with potatoes and an old juicer out of use, Robert Prevost smiles around. “Pope Leo “One of us,” says candy seller Sanchez, who is taking his lunch break here. “He said little, but did a lot.”
Pope Leo XIV, or Robert Francis Prevost, as his real name is, is probably the most popular “gringo” in South America. This is also because the 71-year-old is a kind of antithesis to US President Donald Trump in pretty much everything.
Leo XIV does not mock, but laughs with the people. He is polite, friendly and principled. Here in the northern Peruvian coastal town of Chiclayo he left the formative impressions that are the key to how he is perceived on the most Catholic of all continents.
On Friday he began his twelve-day trip to South America - just over three weeks after the operation in which a tumor and part of his right lung were removed.
It took him first to the model democracy of Uruguay, then to Argentina, which was being shaken up by the restructuring of the libertarian reformer Javier Milei, and finally on November 11th to Peru, where he worked intermittently for 20 years as a missionary, helper and bishop.
In Chiclayo, where his predecessor Pope Francis appointed him bishop, they built monuments to him during his lifetime, baked cookies that bear his name and have designed a tourism route that traces his life in Peru.
And they were praying in church when they heard he had cancer. Please not your pope, not your bishop. Souvenir dealers had taken on debt to invest in Pope T-shirts, Pope baseball caps and Pope bags. If he hadn't come, it would have been her end.
A larger-than-life cardboard cutout of him is placed in the cathedral, which is so full during all eight Sunday services that people have to stand. It's supposed to channel this huge interest in Pope Leo. Offer a place where it is tangible.
A cardboard pope also looks out onto the main square from the town hall balcony. The inscription “Chiclayo – City of Pope Leo XIV” has been there for a few days now. to admire, which immediately became a social media hit.
They opened an exhibition in the town hall itself quickly before his arrival. It shows Prevost with a worried look in rubber boots in the mud after one of those dreaded heavy rains that are expected again in the next few weeks. Peru's President Keiko Fujimori has already declared a state of emergency.
Her father, Alberto Fujimori, was the president of Peru from 1990 to 2000, had indigenous women sterilized without her knowledge - officially to combat poverty - and was later sentenced to a long prison sentence for serious human rights violations. Prevost lived through this time and made no secret of his rejection. His priestly robe now hangs behind glass in the town hall.
Moments that are burned into the collective memory of a region in which the Americans are perceived more as recipients of orders, raising tariffs and demanding political submission.
During the coronavirus pandemic, which was particularly deadly in Peru, Prevost distributed food, comforted and cried with families. On the back of a donkey or a horse, he traversed imponderable terrain to, as his predecessor would say, reach the edges. And learned Quechua, the language of the Peruvian indigenous people.
Suddenly Chiclayo was in the headlines around the world
On May 8, 2025, when the name of the new Pope and the name of a city previously unknown to the rest of the world were seen and heard on the main news in Washington, Moscow or Berlin, they in Chiclayo felt that from now on nothing would be as it once was.
Suddenly tourists come into town and want to know where Prevost ate. You can choose between two restaurants right next to the cathedral - both claim to have been his favorite. For the structurally weak Chiclayo, this is a blessing, almost a miracle.
The Pope takes five days for Peru, wants to soak everything up again and see his compatriots again. Because the man from Chicago also has a Peruvian passport.
He will talk to the conscience of the president, who wants to build mega-prisons and makes martial videos. More than a million people will probably listen to their favorite American at the largest church service on Peruvian soil.
