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CHICLAYO, Peru (RNS) — When the five sixth graders were called into the Rev. Bernardino Gil’s office on Tuesday (Nov. 3), they were ready. Among the group toting microphones, a cardboard Sony camera and homemade press vests, one young reporter asked the priest in Spanish, “What can we learn from the life and mission of Pope Leo XIV?”
Anita Chumacero’s class at Jesús de Nazaret (Jesus of Nazareth) school is preparing to welcome their former bishop back to Chiclayo by interviewing several leaders in the town of Pimentel, including their mayor and their pastor, Gil, who was Leo’s former vicar general.
Though signs welcoming Leo are still sparse in Lima, Peru’s capital, Leo’s former coastal diocese of Chiclayo is already buzzing with excitement for the pope’s arrival. Local businesses are displaying cardboard cutouts of the pope and welcome banners, schools are putting together special projects and local vendors are preparing to sell to the crowds that will soon descend on Chiclayo. And as five months of whirlwind planning settles into place, the Rev. Jorge Villegas, the current vicar general, says he can finally feel a bit lighter after many days, and sometimes sleep-deprived nights, consumed by logistics.
Pimentel, where the sixth graders are carrying out their reporting project, will be a focal point for Leo’s visit to Chiclayo — the site of a record-breaking Mass. Its pampas, or plains, will host up to 915,000 people. Villegas told RNS the diocese’s current record Mass attendance is about 20,000 people for the citywide Corpus Christi Mass. All of this planning came together unusually fast — the last papal trip to Peru took a year of planning.
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The seaside town of Pimentel, where local landowners volunteered their property to host the pope, was not the diocese’s first choice for the Mass. The diocese first considered the larger pampas at Reque for the historic liturgy but had to make other plans because of concerns about unexploded ordnance, as the military had previously used the area as a practice range.
“God knows what he’s doing. It’s a blessing from God,” said Gil, noting Pimentel’s position as the focal point for Leo’s visit.
Still, Pimentel’s pampas are a smaller space with fewer access points due to its proximity to the ocean. Villegas told RNS in Spanish, like other interviews for this story, that he’s been grateful for collaboration with the local government, police and the army as they plan for crowd control.
Though the diocese is encouraging Catholics to sign up to attend the Mass beforehand — with already about 150,000 signups, they expect to make space for those who show up without signing up as long as they’re still under capacity.
Edinson Delgado, the principal of diocesan school Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo (Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo), said he had been asked to read at the Mass. Beyond the honor, “it’s a great pressure,” said Delgado, a 34-year-old supernumerary member of Opus Dei, imagining the crowd and media presence.
His school will host another key event for the visit, a private dinner for Leo and the priests of Chiclayo, many of whom still fondly remember his friendship and guidance. The cooking staff at Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo plan to welcome Leo back with lemon pie and chocolate cake, two desserts that Delgado knows that Leo likes.
The rest of the school community is preparing, too. Parents, staff and students came together to film an elaborate music video featuring photos of Leo, classroom and chapel moments at the school and group dance scenes.
They’re not the only school to create a music video. On Monday, choir director Rafael Gamarra adjusted students’ choir stoles between video takes at Nuestra Señora del Carmen (Our Lady of Carmen) in Lambayeque. “Come, Pope Leo, come to Peru,” sang the students, between the ages of 5 and 14 years old, enthusiastically in the school chapel. “May peace arrive. May love arrive.”
Patricia Saavedra Chulli, mom to choir member Brunella, said, “You pray twice singing to the Lord. So for us it is lovely that the pope comes because he is a priest and now pope that loves our country very much, even though he is a foreigner.”
Though the students at the Dominican Missionary Sisters of the Rosary school won’t be able to sing directly for Leo, they will perform the original song written by Gamarra at SENATI technical college’s papal-themed fashion show on Tuesday (Nov. 10).
In their classes at Our Lady of Carmen, the students say they are learning about the pope — his birthday, his parents and other major life events. But for many, those lessons aren’t abstract. Camila Huamán Benites, a ninth grader, remembers when Leo, then Bishop Robert Prevost, arrived in her town in his wading boots after flooding to bring food, help injured people and assist others in need. Mirelly Angeles Yamunaque, also a ninth grader, said Prevost was a fan of her older brother’s soccer club, Juan Aurich, and that he would come pray and talk with the team.
Memories of Prevost’s ministry motivate other Chiclayanos to prepare their own offerings. “He has heard my confession. He has given me the host,” said Pedro Huamanchumo Orosco, an artisan in the seaside town of Santa Rosa. The octogenarian former fisherman has made a mini caballito de totora, which is a reed boat akin to a surfboard, that he hopes to somehow give to the pope.
Though Huamanchumo still needs to ask his parish priest about how to register to attend the Mass in next-door Pimentel, he also plans to sell his cabillitos de totora to the crowds that will gather near his home.
Other street vendors have already begun to take advantage of the pope’s arrival. Hugo Bance is selling an array of Leo-themed T-shirts, including one that proclaims “the pope is chiclayano at heart.” But Bance said that sales have not been as high as he expected — after initial enthusiasm, they dropped to practically nothing after the announcement of Leo’s surgery for lung cancer. “There was doubt. Was he coming? Was he not coming?” Bance said, and they have not picked back up.
Guido Diaz Salazar, who prints T-shirts in a workshop across the street from Bance’s post, told RNS that he’s just now begun to print shirts. He has several designs, including one that declares, “Pope Leo XIV is Peruvian,” where a graphic of Leo appears next to the Peruvian flag and Machu Picchu.
The diocesan cathedral has also gotten in on the merchandising. Miriam Torres, a longtime member of the Santa Maria Cathedral parish, began staffing the official stand outside the cathedral three months ago. She sells rosaries and Pope Leo magnets and pins, as well as T-shirts that echo Leo’s first speech from the loggia after he was elected pope, where he gave a shoutout to “my beloved diocese of Chiclayo.” The cathedral will host Leo’s Coronation of the Immaculate Virgin, where Villegas says they plan to place screens outside to accommodate the thousands who cannot enter.
At Leo’s Mass in Santa Cruz de Succhabamba, which is over a mile above sea level, the Chiclayo diocese had planned for 70,000 people to gather for Mass, but authorities have told them now to expect 300,000, Villegas told RNS.
Even as they anticipate a larger-than-expected crowd, the Mass in Santa Cruz itself represents a change. Originally, Leo had wanted to visit another region in another, much higher-altitude part of the diocese — Incahuasi, home to speakers of the Indigenous language Quechua — but planners concluded that strong winds in that portion of the Andes would make landing Leo’s helicopter too difficult, Villegas said. They have further backup plans for the Pimentel Mass if El Niño’s heavy rains force a venue change to Chiclayo’s center.
Not all events will be so big. Leo will also visit San Oscár Romero chapel in the El Bosque neighborhood, where he will speak with 274 people, Manuel Segura, a member of the parish council, told RNS. The Romero chapel’s smooth, freshly painted walls stand out among the more ramshackle construction in the neighborhood.
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When he heard parish members were working to remodel the formerly deteriorating chapel, Leo played a key role in raising funds from U.S. benefactors to fully rebuild the chapel where the parents of his personal secretary, Monsignor Edgard Rimaycuna, attend Mass. The gleaming space now features a portrait of Romero, Leo’s pontifical mitre and an upstairs meeting space.
The rebuild was originally scheduled to finish in December, but Leo’s visit moved the construction timeline up, with two daily shifts of workers pushing to complete the project in time. With just 10 days to go before Leo’s visit, where he will bless several people experiencing health challenges, in addition to greeting the parish community, the chapel was nearly complete — just a large crucifix needed to be mounted above the altar and tabernacle.
“Imagine being here just two or three steps from the Holy Father,” said Segura, adding that even his evangelical relatives have asked him about the visit. “We’re very, very excited.”