The footage is blurry. The framing is unsteady. And at one second, one other cellphone pokes into view to seize the scene.
However the video has nonetheless gone viral in Peru for one large motive: It captures a goofy, off-the-cuff second with the brand new head of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV.
On Sunday, the newly elected pope formally started his management of the church with an inaugural mass at Saint Peter’s Sq. within the Vatican.
His papacy has made historical past. Born in Chicago, Leo XIV is the primary pope ever to hail from america. However for Peruvians within the northern metropolis of Chiclayo, he’s a hometown hero, and the viral video from 2014 is proof of his South American roots.
Below fluorescent lights and scattered decorations fabricated from curling ribbon, Leo XIV — then generally known as Robert Prevost — warbles Christmas songs right into a handheld microphone.
“Feliz Navidad! Feliz Navidad,” he sings, backed by a guitar-playing band of Chiclayo youths, swaying to the beat. “I wanna want you a merry Christmas!”
Within the lead-up to his papacy, Chiclayo, Peru’s fifth largest city, has performed a central function in Leo XIV’s rise via the Catholic Church.
Since 1985, Leo has served in numerous Catholic missions all through the north of the nation. However during the last decade of his profession, Chiclayo has been his house base. He served as bishop there from 2015 to 2023, and through that point, he additionally turned a Peruvian citizen.
“He has earned the love of the individuals,” mentioned Father Jose Alejandro Castillo Vera, a neighborhood church chief who first met Leo XIV in 2014.
However whereas the area has warmly embraced its “papa chiclayano” — its pope from Chiclayo — the state of affairs in Latin America additionally displays the struggles of Leo’s new put up.
Catholicism is regarded as on the decline in Latin America. A survey from the general public opinion agency Latinobarometro discovered that, from 1995 to 2024, the variety of self-identified Catholics slipped from about 80 p.c to 54.
And in Peru, public opinion suffered within the wake of a sexual abuse scandal that emerged in 2015.
Nonetheless, in Chiclayo, there’s optimism that Leo XIV’s management can reinvigorate the Catholic trustworthy, given his observe file of public service.
“I feel he can promote area for dialogue,” mentioned Yolanda Diaz, a 70-year-old instructor in Chiclayo and nationwide adviser for the Nationwide Union of Catholic College students.
She believes Leo XIV will assist “transfer ahead, little by little, the modifications we wish to see within the church”.
A hometown hero
Leo XIV set the tone for his papacy early on. In his first remarks after his election, he switched from Italian to Spanish to handle his adopted hometown instantly.
“For those who permit me a phrase, a greeting to all and particularly to my beloved diocese of Chiclayo, in Peru, the place a trustworthy individuals accompanied their bishop, shared their religion and gave a lot, a lot, to proceed being a trustworthy Church of Jesus Christ,” he mentioned.
Vatican observers shortly identified he opted to not handle the US, his delivery nation, nor to talk in his native English.
Within the days that adopted, 1000’s of individuals poured into Chiclayo’s fundamental sq. to have a good time the brand new pope, dancing and receiving communion within the shadow of its buttercup-yellow cathedral.
Within the frenzy, native companies spied financial potential. Ricardo Acosta, the president of the Nationwide Affiliation of Journey Businesses and Tourism (APAVIT), proposed making a pope-themed tourism route.
And eating places in Chiclayo posted indicators exterior their door: “Aqui comio el Papa.” In different phrases: “The pope ate right here.”
Poverty within the northern area of Peru impacts practically 1 / 4 of the inhabitants. And native advocates have argued that town and surrounding areas battle with insufficient public infrastructure.
Dealing with Peru’s poverty
That downside was thrown into stark aid in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the United Nations reported that greater than a thousand households in Chiclayo lacked entry to ingesting water.
Healthcare sources have been additionally stretched skinny. Peru had the highest death rate per capita, with an estimated 665.8 deaths for each 100,000 individuals.
Father Castillo, the secretary-general of the Catholic support organisation Caritas Chiclayo, remembers that Leo XIV performed a important function in elevating cash to purchase medical-grade oxygen to deal with the sick.
“He got here up with the concept of constructing a marketing campaign to assist the group, to accumulate an oxygen plant,” Father Castillo defined.
Via their collective efforts, greater than $380,000 have been raised to purchase the oxygen technology techniques.
“He appealed to your entire inhabitants, to the authorities and to the businessmen as properly,” Father Castillo mentioned. “In the long run, God was so nice that not solely there was cash for one plant, however for 2 oxygen vegetation.”
Each, nevertheless, have since been shut down because of a scarcity of funds for upkeep. Nonetheless, Father Castillo instructed Al Jazeera he hopes Pope Leo XIV will proceed his advocacy for the poor whereas on the Vatican.
“We’re all hopeful that he continues to be that voice, not just for us Peruvians, however for everybody,” he mentioned. “Many individuals have to get out of distress, out of poverty.”
From one migrant to a different
For Diaz, the instructor, certainly one of her fondest recollections of the brand new pope was working collectively on one other urgent concern dealing with Peru: migration.
Since 2018, Peru has grow to be one of many main locations for migrants and asylum seekers from Venezuela, the place political repression and financial instability have pushed greater than 7.9 million individuals overseas.
The United Nations estimates that Peru has absorbed practically two million of these migrants. That makes it the second largest recipient of Venezuelans in Latin America.
Diaz instructed Al Jazeera she witnessed the impression of that wave of arrivals in Chiclayo. She and Leo XIV labored collectively on a brand new fee he established as bishop to handle migration and human trafficking.
“We had an enormous surge,” Diaz remembered. “We noticed as much as 20,000 individuals arriving in Chiclayo, greater than 3,000 households, together with youngsters and kids. You possibly can see them sleeping in the primary sq., on the streets, in church entrances, exterior journey firms.”
The inflow has stirred up anti-immigrant sentiment amongst some Peruvians, leading to experiences of discrimination.
However Diaz noticed that Leo XIV tried to destigmatise what it means to be a foreigner in Peru when he visited migrant communities.
“I’m a migrant,” Diaz remembers him saying. “I do know what it means to reach as a migrant in an unknown land, with a special tradition.”
She noticed that as proof he can bridge divides in his new function as pope. “He understands there’s variety within the church.”
Confronting the church’s abuse scandals
However whereas Pope Leo XIV is basically seen as a unifying determine in Chiclayo, his papacy has reignited some lingering controversies inside the Catholic Church.
Among the many most damning are the allegations of sexual abuse in Catholic dioceses throughout the globe, from the US to Chile to Eire.
The Catholic Church in Peru isn’t any exception. A lot of the scrutiny has centred on one group particularly, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV).
It was based in Peru in 1971 and grew to incorporate members throughout Latin America.
However in 2011, the Catholic Church began to obtain formal complaints about its founder Luis Fernando Figari and different leaders within the SCV motion.
In 2015, after years of investigation, journalists Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz revealed a ebook concerning the complaints that shocked Peruvian society and introduced the difficulty to worldwide consideration.
Known as Half Monks, Half Troopers, the ebook detailed greater than 30 instances of abuse, together with allegations of psychological abuse, pressured sodomisation and different harms dedicated within the SCV.
Ugaz instructed Al Jazeera that the longer term Pope Leo was supportive of her efforts to analyze.
“Among the many bishops who supported us till the tip is Robert Prevost, an empathetic one that is conscious that this concern is essential to his papacy,” she mentioned in a written assertion.
Figari has constantly denied any wrongdoing. However Leo’s predecessor on the Vatican, Pope Francis, finally despatched two envoys to Peru, together with an archbishop, to analyze the group.
In 2024, Peru’s church authorities launched a statement confirming that the investigation had discovered instances of “bodily abuse, together with sadism and violence” in addition to different actions designed “to interrupt the desire of subordinates”.
Figari and different high members have been finally expelled from the organisation. And later, Pope Francis took the uncommon step of dissolving the group altogether. The decree of suppression took impact only one week earlier than Francis died in April, successfully abolishing the group.
However Pope Leo himself has confronted scrutiny over whether or not he did not act upon the complaints the diocese in Chiclayo obtained whereas he was bishop.
In March, as an example, a bunch known as Survivors Community of These Abused by Monks (SNAP) issued a letter alleging that three girls in 2022 reported their sexual abuse to the diocese, solely to face institutional silence.
“There may be severe motive to imagine that Cardinal Prevost didn’t observe the procedures established by the Holy See for finishing up investigations following experiences of abuse,” SNAP wrote.
Leo XIV, nevertheless, has instructed the Peruvian newspaper La Republica previously that he rejects “cover-ups and secrecy”. And final week, Father Jordi Bertomeu Farnos, a Vatican investigator, denied the experiences.
“Robert Prevost didn’t cowl up something,” Bertomeu Farnos instructed Peruvian media in Rome. “He did every thing based on the protocols we’ve got within the Vatican.”
Ugaz, the journalist, says she stays optimistic Leo XIV can implement reform.
She identified that, in his first days as pope, Leo XIV held a gathering with Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who leads a Vatican fee to guard youngsters from abuse. She additionally recalled the phrases of encouragement he lately gave to her and her journalism accomplice.
“He requested us to proceed our work,” she mentioned, “and to count on information about Peru quickly.”
