“In Peru, the challenges of the Church are those of the country”

Leon XIV took Peruvian nationality in 2015. How was the announcement of his election in your country received?

With a lot of joy! For a few days, it looks like Chiclayo (The diocese of which Léon XIX was bishop, editor’s note) has become the center of the world. Everyone is interested in it!

Catholicism is the majority religion in Peru. How is faith there?

It is popular there, and very linked to regional devotions: processions and pilgrimages are essential meetings, as well as the Holy Martin festivals or Saint Rose de Lima. Almost everyone has a small altar at home, prays daily, makes their house bless … The most recent figures indicate 64 % of Catholics (a decreased figure), 22 % evangelical, 3 % other religions and 10 % “without religion”. But on this last figure, people are rather agnostic than ideas.

The relationship with the sacraments is particular: Catholics can be very religious, without however confessing or communing. Peru lives with a chronic lack of priests. In some rural areas, the priest only spends once a year, to celebrate all the sacraments at once: weddings, baptisms, confessions … Many people say they are Catholics without being baptized, or live together without being married by pragmatism: organizing a baptism or a marriage takes time and is expensive. And unlike France, practice is not centered around Sunday mass.

However, the Catholic Church attracts fewer young people in Peru today …

With encyclical Fidei Donum (1957 text calling for sending diocesan priests on a mission to Africa and Latin America, editor’s note), Many priests arrived from abroad in the 1970s, causing renewed vocations. In recent years, the momentum, in fact, has been cut.

The Church of Peru is experiencing a decrease, which first concerns young people, and in particular those who are studying. Many of them become agnostics, even if Catholic culture continues to count for them. Evangelicals also represent a growing group. Their number increased quickly at the end of the last century. Growth continues but more posed. The evangelicals offer recognition to those who feel marginalized. Their welcome is always warm and the door of pastorate remains open to everyone, there is therefore a possibility of “a career”, to become a person of authority.

In addition, the priest, in his celibacy, evolves against the tide. In the macho mentality, in a negative version, the many female conquests remain very well seen. In a positive version, the ideal is expressed in terms of a father who wins daily bread and directs his clan. The pastor can therefore embody a male ideal to imitate.

Is the Church of Peru marked by specific currents of thought?

To understand it, it must be remembered that our Church was one of the cradles of the theology of the Liberation (movement claiming to be of the Gospel, advocating the radical commitment to the poor and the rejection of capitalism, editor’s note). A theology that John Paul II considered as an ideological drift, moving away from Catholic doctrine. To fight his influence, he undertook to appoint more conservative bishops.

In the 1990s, a quarter of the episcopate came from opus dei and sodalicio. The latter was the scene of many sexual abuses, especially from its founder Luis Fernando Figari. The sodalicio were born to respond to the theology of liberation by “theology of reconciliation”, but were also a movement strongly imbued with fascism.

Today, theological training is poor, missing, and very dogmatic, facing a country imbued with popular devotion. This is one of the reasons for the advance of the Pentecostal movement, which is often called “evangelical”: their pastors speak of everyday life, are close to people, their temples meet the needs of the faithful: schools, daily occupations, meeting places, dynamic cults … Opposite, a young Catholic man who wants to become a priest will have to leave his environment imbued with popular devotion to go to learn dogmas, Greek and Latin – Barely writing Spanish – then coming out to be in contact with popular piety. The discrepancy is great!

These scandals that you mention, how were they received by the faithful and the clergy?

The sodalite community mainly dealt with supporting the wealthiest social classes, which are of European type. It also managed an immense economic heritage, which allowed it to evade civil justice. The Vatican had to intervene. Despite everything, the facts of abuse came out very little in the newspapers and most Peruvians perceived them as a story that did not concern them, which did not belong to their social environment.

Apart from this one community, many other cases of abuse exist. I happened to meet very poor mothers whose little girls were abused by a priest, who gave them money. North American, this priest passed for a cacic with the neighborhood, no one dared to say anything, nor the mothers to file a complaint. They ended up leaving the Catholic Church and turning to the evangelicals.

Today what are the challenges and possible fractures of the Peruvian church?

The church not being in a bubble, its challenges are those of the whole country. Peru is fragmented and very conservative – and I do not give a pejorative connotation to this term. Abortion is prohibited and homosexual relationships are not recognized, for example. There are also homophobia problems, many feminicides – Pope Francis spoke about it during his visit in 2018.

The round trips that our country experienced, between theology of the Liberation, conservative turn, then return of Pope Francis who appointed new bishops, led to a certain polarization of society. Texts like Fiducia supplicans (authorizing the blessing of homosexual people, editor’s note) were welcomed by great silence, considering that it was not a subject.

In the midst of this, the subjects are multiple. There is the question of women – which arises very differently from the northern hemisphere: with us, transmission is made a lot by women. However, they are more and more educated, and many of them take their distance from the Church. There is the question of modernity: as elsewhere, everyone here is on their laptop, spends time in public transport, works on Sunday: where and when can we take the time to celebrate? The priorities have changed, and the desire to improve your material life prevails over the rest.

Finally, we have a big ecological problem. Illegal mining operations generate twice as much money as cocaine traffic, while destroying nature. Laudato if was therefore very well received, even if a small part of the episcopate thinks that the mine would bring necessary progress.

Despite everything, the Church continues to play an essential social role – although its presence decreases. In the villages, if there is one strike or a dead end, we call the parish priest to play the mediators. Each July 28, on the occasion of the Independence Festival, Cardinal Lima gives a mass to which the president and the ministers assist, although the country is constitutionally secular. He pronounces a homily where political themes are discussed. Monsignor Prevost was part of this social momentum, close to people.