The Service of the Church

PART TWO

ON May 8, 2025, Cardinal Robert Prevost accepted the proposal of the College of Cardinals, gathered in conclave, to see him exercise the supreme office of the papacy. At the moment of his acceptance, he became the Pope, the 267^th successor of Saint Peter, endowed with the power of jurisdiction entrusted to him by Our Lord to govern His Church under the name of Leo XIV. We know so little about Monsignor Prevost’s thought that we are unable, even in broad terms, to determine the doctrine he intends to uphold from the See of Rome. He did not write any memoirs, he did not write any books, and he does not seem to have developed any personal doctrine that was published. Moreover, he seems to have been a man who was discreet about his personal opinions, about the issues he faced, the reasons for his appointments and elections, and his personal decisions. He was not a secretive man, but a discreet one, which makes us all the more eager to wait patiently for the decisive measures he will take as Supreme Pontiff.

We have undertaken a study of the main stages of a life devoted to the service of the Church, convinced that the initial analyses we can draw from it today will be useful in interpreting the decisions and texts that Leo XIV will issue in the future (cf. He is Risen no. 266, May 2025). His service to the Church began in 1977 when he entered the Order of Saint Augustine in Chicago, in the province dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel. He received everything from his community, to which he remains deeply attached. A service to the Church which, providentially, in an exact application of his vow of obedience, led him to Rome to receive his training in canon law and priestly ordination, required him to exercise the offices of provincial and then superior general, and above all led him to Peru to take charge of the diocese of Chiclayo in 2014.

A QUIET REVOLUTION IN CHICLAYO?

Located in northern Peru, along the Pacific coast, the Diocese of Chiclayo covers the city and its surroundings. Nearly 40 % of the population lives in rural areas or small towns, some of which are very difficult to access and generally very poor. The diocese was created in 1956 and, after the death of its first bishop in 1967, Daniel Figueroa Villón, a disciple of Saint Pius X, Paul VI appointed Bishop Ignacio Maria de Obergozo, of Opus Dei. The latter founded a seminary which was particularly successful, welcoming around eighty seminarians. Bishop de Obergozo died in 1998. His successor, Bishop Jesús Moliné, was a member of the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, linked to Opus Dei, and apparently gained a reputation for his orthodoxy in the doctrinal field. Thus, these two prelates led the diocese for forty-five years in the same spirit and left a definite mark on the clergy, whose numbers grew along with the population, which increased from 400,000 to one million souls, with the number of parishes doubling.

Bishop Moliné resigned in 2014 and Pope Francis appointed Father Robert Prevost as his successor, deliberately choosing someone from outside the ranks of Opus Dei, as all commentators believe. “Pope Francis appointed him bishop of Chiclayo, a diocese in the north that had been led for decades by the conservative Opus Dei movement. In doing so, Pope Francis broke with this movement, which has a strong presence in the Church in Peru,” explains Véronique Lecaros, Doctor of Theology and lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. “Bishop Prevost worked to increase the inclusion of lay people and women in his diocese, inviting them to participate in its renewal. He launched a movement towards synodality and promoted the creation of pastoral councils in parishes. In doing so, he broke with the highly hierarchical, clerical and normative style of Opus Dei in Peru, which permeated the clergy. For example, previously, a woman could not ride in a priest’s car. Pastoral care for young men was encouraged, while pastoral care for young women was avoided. Bishop Prevost, following in the footsteps of Pope Francis, changed this orientation. He opened up the diocese, gave lay people a place that did not exist before, and appointed lay people and women to positions of responsibility.”●

Father Hubert Boulangé Allègre, a Fidei Donum missionary in Peru for more than thirty years, confirms that “in Chiclayo, where he succeeded very conservative bishops, he opened the Church to the fields of service and diaconia. And while he was bishop of Chiclayo, 780 kilometres from Lima, he was sent by the Pope for a year to resolve problems in a diocese near Lima. He was the administrator of this diocese, where there was a very large divide between society and the Church. It was a complex problem, and he did a tremendous job, always seeking consensus, dialogue and listening. He is a man who listens a lot and who listens with great presence and discretion, even to things he did not necessarily want to hear (...). He took into account the presence of non-Catholic religious groups that feed off of the needs of society that the Catholic Church has difficulty meeting. He was able to maintain dialogue while at the same time showing firmness on what constitutes the Catholicity of the Catholic Church.”●

Cesar Piscoya, a family man, former pastoral leader in the Diocese of Chiclayo and now working for the Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM), was keen to give his testimony about the man for whom he had worked in the Diocese of Chiclayo. Human nature is such that perhaps the witness says more about the importance of the role he believes he played in the past with regard to the man who has now become the Supreme Pontiff! And perhaps we learn more about his ideas than those of Bishop Prevost. “I have known Roberto since 1996. We shared many years together in the Augustinian mission. Then, in 2017, I returned to Chiclayo, and when I came back, he asked me if we could work together in the diocese, so we worked together until December 2022, when he was bishop of Chiclayo.”● So Bishop Prevost waited three years after his arrival in the diocese before making this appointment. The layman explained that the bishop was committed to setting up pastoral teams at the parish and diocesan levels, ‘obviously’ calling on the services of women, some of whom were appointed to key positions such as the leadership of Caritas and the Catholic University of Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo.

“And once a year, a large assembly is organised – around a thousand people – to reflect on the main directions. There, sensibilities that rarely intersect meet and confront each other. When it comes to identifying the major issues, diagnoses diverge. ‘The faithful are losing their faith,’ some worry. ‘Venezuelan migrants are destitute,’ insist others. ‘That was Bishop Prevost’s vision,’ sums up Yolanda Diaz, head of the diocese’s Human Mobility Commission. Everyone listens to each other. It was not a question of denying conflicts, but of entering into dialogue.” ●

The priests of the diocese trained by the bishops of Opus Dei seem equally satisfied with Bishop Prevost. They had every reason to fear a bishop who might ask them to change everything about their habits. Not at all. Everything seems to have gone very well. “From the beginning, we appreciated his closeness – and his Spanish,” explains Father Millán, rector of Chiclayo Cathedral.● “He was a very open, very approachable man. There were no barriers between him and his priests. We could all call him to talk to him or send him a message. He was very close to all of us (...). He was always very open to working with everyone, with us, the priests of Opus Dei and the Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, with all the religious congregations of the diocese, which have different sensibilities. He worked with everyone (...). He was very open, he talked to everyone, he welcomed everyone, but he was very clear on doctrinal issues. I often spoke to him about these matters and he was very clear (...). He arrived in the diocese to build on what had been done before, he did not make any radical changes. He came and wanted to know about the work we had done, then little by little he added his personal touch, but he never came with any preconceptions because we are ‘conservative’; on the contrary, he always trusted us.” (ibid.)●

Érika Valdivieso, who headed the Family Institute at the Catholic University of Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo in Chiclayo, confirmed that “Bishop Roberto was open to dialogue with everyone, but made it clear that he was also a defender of the traditional family. He was always interested in the work we were doing, always encouraging us to work on public policies in favour of the family and to promote a pastoral message in defence of the family,” she said. “As a bishop, he was always very faithful to the social doctrine of the Church, calling on us to protect and care for the family, but always with charity. I never heard him use hurtful words, even though he was very clear about Church doctrine. He considered everyone to be children of God, but he always spoke clearly on doctrinal issues.” (ibid.)●

It seems that Bishop Prevost took care of the seminary in Chiclayo, which was functioning very well when he arrived. The number of seminarians, just under forty, remained stable throughout his time as head of the diocese. “That is still a good number in Peru, and this year we had 18 admissions in the first year, which is an encouraging sign that vocations are on the rise again,” Father Zamora points out. “He always encouraged vocations among youth groups when he visited the seminary. He was a very busy man, but he went to the seminary whenever the young people invited him. I remember he went to see the football tournament matches; he always celebrated Mass at the seminary’s two major fundraising events and invited people to attend,” added Father Millán. (ibid.)●

Those who worked with Bishop Prevost also described him as a competent administrator and a good superior. “He was a man who let you do your job. He never came with strict instructions or orders. The only direct request he made of me in eight years was that we pray the breviary with the faithful in the cathedral, so we began to pray Lauds and Vespers with the faithful, and he always joined us,” said Father Millán. (ibid.)●

Monsignor Valdivieso, Grand Chancellor of the university, described his former bishop as someone who knew how to listen and who trusted his team. “He participated in important decisions, but he let us work. He gave us guidelines, but he trusted us and always reminded us that the scientific work of a Catholic university is, at its core, a search for truth. So he combined the intellectual and the pastoral well,” he said. (ibid.)●

Father Bernardino Gil, former Vicar General of Chiclayo, worked closely with Bishop Prevost for nearly eight years and considers him a very affable and approachable person. “He was a very patient man who acted without delay but without haste. He was also very kind and generous... He had a great ability to make friends,” he said. (ibid.)●

A BISHOP OF GREAT CHARITY.

His priests readily acknowledge his spirit of enterprise and charity in organising relief efforts following the crisis in Venezuela, which led to the arrival of a million refugees in Peru. “I remember that when the pandemic restrictions were eased, one of the first things he said to me was that we had to reopen the cathedral canteen, because hundreds of poor people came there to eat almost every day.” Bishop Prevost also led the diocese’s relief efforts when a local village was hit by severe flooding. “At the end of 2022, there was flooding in the village of Íllimo, north of Chiclayo, and he went there in person. You have probably seen the photos of him in boots; he was there. He did not just say we had to help these people, he was on the front line, getting his hands dirty, alongside his people,” said Father Zamora.

In 2017 and 2018, Venezuela, led by Nicolás Maduro, experienced a political crisis coupled with a catastrophic economic, financial and social crisis, causing a massive emigration of its population, mainly to Colombia and Peru. Thousands of refugees flooded into Chiclayo. “In 2017, we saw Venezuelans sleeping in the squares, in front of the cathedral, in the streets. These were not single people, but entire families, with many children. The bishop saw this situation and called me to tell me that he was putting together a team to deal with it,” says Yolanda Diaz, whom Bishop Prevost appointed chair of the Commission on Human Migration and Human Trafficking. This commission, which reports to the bishopric, has eighteen members, both religious and lay, all of whom are volunteers. The working group set up by the bishop has given itself the task of regularising the immigration status of Venezuelans and speeding up the validation of school and university diplomas, while helping them to access the health system, among other things. “Bishop Robert told us: ‘We must listen to the migrants, ask them how we can help them.’ They were the ones who said that the first thing they needed was to regularise their immigration status, because without it, they could not work and their children could not go to school. So we started to bring them together in parishes and call in immigration officials to explain the procedure to them and help us speed it up,” says the former president of the Commission who, for four years, was responsible for presenting reports on the organisation’s work to Bishop Prevost.

But a few months later, Bishop Prevost noticed a significant increase in street prostitution as a result of this wave of migration, and realised that something had to be done. He approached the Contemplative Sisters to encourage them to continue their work with the Commission on Human Movements and Human Trafficking to reach out to women in moral distress, rescue them from the life they are leading, train them and help them find employment, dignified work to support themselves. It was in this context that, with his help, the Saint Vicente de Paul reception centre was created in Puerto Eten, which can accommodate up to thirty families and has hosted nearly five thousand people. And we learn from an account reported in the Argentine newspaper La Nacion: “Father Robert [Bishop Robert Prevost] also organised spiritual retreats for female workers (...), which were very popular at the time.”

We also know that Bishop Prevost was deeply involved in helping the population in the aftermath of the El Niño phenomenon. Faced with rivers overflowing due to torrential rains causing extensive damage to homes and fields, the bishop visited the most affected villages wearing rubber boots and knee-deep in water. He had housing modules installed for the victims and distributed tonnes of food and mattresses. Added to this situation was the health crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, followed by two major waves of flooding in 2022 and 2023 that submerged Chiclayo, and the dengue epidemic. He managed to raise nearly $400,000.00 in a matter of weeks. The oxygen provided by Bishop Prevost saved many lives.

Bishop Jesús Moliné himself spoke in favour of his successor in 2014 at the head of the Diocese of Chiclayo, in an interview published by the University of Piura on May 13, 2025: “He has a social sensitivity that has led him to be present in difficult situations in Chiclayo, such as during the floods caused by the El Niño phenomenon, or to obtain oxygen for the population during the COVID-19 pandemic, or to help Venezuelan migrants through the diocese’s Caritas. Bishop Prevost has always strived to live and act as a father to all (...). Once, there was very heavy rain in Chiclayo, and the Pan-American Highway was flooded by the overflowing La Leche River, which severely affected the crops of farmers and many hamlets in the region and surrounding areas. After receiving a call from the local parish priest, Bishop Prevost went there in person to help those affected by the floods and bring them material aid, which he distributed to the victims.”

These are some of the most significant charitable works accomplished by Bishop Prevost, who also worked tirelessly to open soup kitchens in various locations throughout Chiclayo.

A PASTOR FOR SOULS.

Despite his extensive charitable activities, Bishop Prevost did not neglect his ministry, visiting the fifty parishes of the Diocese of Chiclayo “without ceasing to don his stole in any remote village to celebrate Mass, perform confirmations and hear the confessions of parishioners.” Father Marcos Ballena, a professor at the seminary in Chiclayo, testifies that “at 10 o’clock in the morning, Bishop Prevost could celebrate Mass in the mountains of our diocese, Santa Cruz – a province of Cajamarca that Chiclayo also serves; at 4 or 6 o’clock in the afternoon, he could celebrate Mass in the cathedral; and at 8 o’clock in the evening, he could have a meeting in a parish, all in the same day. He gave himself entirely to the people.”

Father Ballena, along with his colleague, Father David Farfán, parish priest of Santo Toribio in Zaña, highlight the striking similarities between Bishop Prevost and the great and holy bishop of Lima, Saint Toribio de Mogrovejo. Born on November 16, 1538 in Mayorga, Spain, he was first appointed Apostolic Inquisitor of Granada before being entrusted with the archbishopric of Lima, then capital of the Peruvian viceroyalty. He arrived on May 24, 1581 at the Peruvian port of Paita and immediately began his apostolic mission by travelling to Lima, teaching and baptising the poor Indians he met along the way. Of the twenty-four years of his archiepiscopate, he spent only eight in Lima. To the admiration of Bishop Prevost, Saint Toribio exhausted himself in three frantic apostolic journeys, during which he visited every corner of the immense territory of his diocese, from Lambayeque to Quito via Trijillo and Chiclayo, so as not to leave any soul without the help of his ministry and his charity. He even lived with the Incas in their ayllus, spoke to them in Quechua, and exposed himself to incredible difficulties and dangers to visit them in the most remote places and convert them. “Since these sheep have been entrusted to me, I have done this: forgetting my own well-being, I have thought only of this (...). I work from morning to night to confirm the natives. They need it so much (...). Chains and irons on my feet would not prevent me from continuing such a holy journey. I surmount all possible obstacles and consider nothing else.”

He died while carrying out his missionary work on Holy Thursday 1606, at the Convent of Saint Augustine in Zaña, near Chiclayo, leaving behind an immense work: countless baptisms and confirmations, churches, convents, a seminary for the regeneration of the clergy, roads, hospitals, schools, and thirteen diocesan synods. But his most important work was undoubtedly the Third Council of Lima (1582-1583), which took place at a time when the Church was preparing to promote the reforms of the Council of Trent (1545-1549, 1551-1552 and 1562-1563). “The admirable catechetical work of the Doctrina Christiana and his two catechisms, the Confesionario para curas de Indias (pastoral guide for confession) and the Sermonario (preaching guide), both of which were translated into Quechua and Aymara, can be considered as fruits of this Third Council. These books had a profound impact on the minds of the indigenous people (...). It has been rightly said that the bishoprics of South and Central America lived for more than two centuries (1653-1900) according to the internal, canonical and pastoral organisation that Saint Toribio had given them with the Council of Lima.● It should be noted that the canons of the First Council of 1552, which were so tolerant towards idolatry, were declared “devoid of legitimate authority and defective in themselves”.●

Let us return to Pope Leo XIV. Father Millán believes that his former bishop’s charity was the fruit of a life of deep prayer. “He had a very regular prayer life. He always prayed in his chapel when he woke up in the morning, then he went to the cathedral for Lauds. After breakfast, he would start work, and we would usually recite the Rosary together around noon. He preferred to celebrate Mass in the evening, at eight o’clock. He explained that his mind was clearer and calmer then, because he no longer had work on his mind. After Mass, he would have another moment of prayer, then he would have his dinner.”

While some Catholics were surprised by the Holy Father’s rather traditional liturgical sensibility, the priests of his former diocese were not. “He always celebrated with the solemnity required by the liturgy, no more, no less, always wearing a chasuble despite the heat for the celebration of Mass. In the cathedral, we have had the custom for many years of hearing confessions during opening hours. As parish priest, I was often in the confessional, but sometimes I had to go out to talk to people or take care of the parish, so I usually heard confessions wearing the stole but without the alb. Once, he saw me like this and asked me to always wear the alb and stole when hearing confessions. He often helped us hear confessions at the cathedral when there were a lot of people, just before Easter and Christmas, but he always entered the confessional without attracting attention so that no one would know it was him. When there were confirmations or a patron saint’s feast day in rural areas, sometimes in the mountains, he would often go the day before to help the priest hear confessions, and he always had everything he needed to celebrate Mass with dignity. He paid great attention to all these details,” said Father Millán.

“I think the eminent virtues that characterised him were his great humility and simplicity. He was one of us. And he was a great missionary, always wanting to reach out to those who did not know Jesus or those who, knowing Him, needed to learn the doctrine,” concluded Father Zamora. “He had a calming presence and always knew how to lead by relying on his priests. He never imposed a way of working, he simply respected what we did,” said Father Millán.

There is unanimous praise for this man who was their pastor for nearly ten years from all those who took part in the life of the Diocese of Chiclayo, as priests or lay people. This is all the more impressive given that the testimonies converge to paint a portrait of a man of great kindness and patience, who spoke little but acted a great deal. It is undeniable that under the impetus of Bishop Prevost, the diocese seems to have been very gradually and imperceptibly reformed to welcome lay people into parish and diocesan bodies, while the priests in place – currently numbering 119, which is a significant number! – have been very warmly supported by their bishop in their ministry. Everyone expected that the appointment of a religious from the Order of Saint Augustine would mean the arrival of a bishop with a very different ‘style’ from the two previous ones who came from the ranks of Opus Dei, but it must be said that Bishop Prevost did not provoke any ‘revolution’ or break with the past; everything was done in a spirit of continuity.

Everything was maintained in terms of liturgical life, catechesis, and the distribution of the Sacraments under the responsibility of the priests, while many social works were developed under the responsibility of the laity. The bishop ensured the cohesion of the whole by supporting his priests in their ministry while apparently allowing them great freedom and guiding the laity in their missions. Apparently without any act of authority, but through discussion, listening, dialogue, consultation, conciliation... without comment, reprimand, correction, even fraternal. Apparently no disorder to repress, no progress, no improvement, no conversion to ask of anyone. Nothing! But the testimonies consulted are necessarily partial. We do not know everything, and Bishop Prevost has a well-founded reputation for discretion.

As for the love of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, sacrifices to offer Them... apparently everything is self-evident since these are never mentioned. Yet the overwhelming majority of Peruvians are Catholic despite the very aggressive proselytism of Protestant sects. The faithful are very devout (no less than five week-day Masses per day at the cathedral!). As for Catholic devotions in Chiclayo, such as the Captive Lord of Nazareth in Monsefu, the Cross of Chalpon in Motupe or the Divine Child of the miracle of Eten, Bishop Moliné, Bishop Emeritus of Chiclayo, who was succeeded by Bishop Prevost, said that they “captivated the heart of the new Pope during his stay in northern Peru, and he encouraged them because they promote Christian life and help people to live their faith in their daily lives and in different places, not only in churches but also in the streets. Devotion to the Eucharistic miracle of Eten, a region near Chiclayo, is undoubtedly the one to which Bishop Prevost is most attached. On June 2, 1649, in the village of Santa Magdalena de Eten, during Mass on the eve of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, the Child Jesus appeared in a consecrated host, which unfortunately has not been preserved. In June 2019, Bishop Robert Prevost, who was seeking formal approval of the Eucharistic miracle from the Vatican, explained that ‘the history, the data, and the devotion over the course of these 370 years are well documented’ thanks to the testimonies preserved in the archives of the Franciscans in the city of Lima.●

In January 2019, Bishop Prevost welcomed a pilgrim statue of Our Lady of Fatima to his cathedral amid a crowd of faithful. He read an act of reparation and consecration to God, to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary: “Through this act of repentance, forgiveness and reparation to God, I renew the consecration of Peru to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, together with the dioceses, parishes, priests, deacons, seminarians, religious men and women, and laity.” It is very touching to see this crowd of faithful surrounding their bishop, who acts as a mediator between his diocese and the Blessed Virgin. But is this really Bishop Prevost’s personal piety? We know that he recites his Rosary and honours “the Mother of God in a special way, with filial love, in accordance with the practice of the Church and the tradition of the Order which, from time immemorial, has venerated Her under the titles of Our Lady of Grace, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Our Mother of Consolation and Our Mother of Good Counsel.” (Art. 106 of the Constitutions of the Order of Saint Augustine)

This Marian devotion, however, is apparently quite personal to the religious of the Order, for when he addressed a small exhortation in January 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, to support the courage of his diocesans, there is no trace of it to be found. “No one could have imagined the year that has just passed, a year marked by so much suffering, crisis, pain and death. However, today I would like to return to the motto we chose for this pastoral year: ‘The Word dwells among us’. I do so in order to reflect with you on how God can be among us despite so much suffering. Saint Augustine, responding to someone who was suffering from the death of a loved one, wrote these words: ‘Those who are afflicted and sad must understand their pain and their tears. But do not weep like the pagans who have no hope, like those who do not know the promise of Christ. Our loved ones who have died live on in spirit, and we will meet them again in the priceless eternity’ (Letter 263). Dear brothers and sisters, we still have much to learn about pain, but also much to learn about hope, especially about eternity. The Word, Jesus, dwells among us to teach us to respect pain, to live in hope, to rediscover our vocation to eternity.●

And immediately after this supernatural elevation – rather short, nonetheless! – Bishop Prevost moves straight on to works, but not before reminding us that “we cannot live in isolation, no one lives their faith alone, no one is saved alone. Faith is always ecclesial, faith drives us to seek out others, faith makes us brothers and sisters” (ibid.)●. Here, Bishop Prevost expresses an idea that is very significant in his thinking, very clear in his mind, and according to which faith is necessarily ecclesial. It is not reduced to a direct and personal relationship between the one who claims to be a disciple of Jesus and Jesus Himself. Faith implies belonging to the Church, being a son of the Church.

And the bishop concludes: “Every message of faith is therefore a message of brotherhood. We cannot live a faith without works, that is, without charity, without solidarity, without brotherhood (...). The Church, in union with the whole of society, through the campaign ‘Resucita Perú, ahora’ (Peru, rise again now), wants to offer a concrete, visible and real response of faith. The joy that Jesus Christ brings to the world – true joy and not just a fleeting or superficial feeling – is a response of faith and brotherhood. it is God’s call to heal the wounds of those who suffer, to share our poverty with those who have less, to grow in the wisdom of the Word of God, to let ourselves be enlightened by the Lord, by Jesus, the Word Who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).” (ibid.)●

Certainly, with these deaths that bring grief to families already suffering from many other hardships, the diocese’s faithful have the right to turn their gaze to Heaven, but they are quickly diverted from this by their bishop, who directs them towards works of charity and social action. It is blatantly obvious. And Bishop Prevost uses this trilogy of “charity (...), solidarity (...), fraternity (...)” to make the transition between the fraternal charity of Jesus based on faith and the Masonic fraternity of Pope Francis’ Fratelli tutti, for which Bishop Prevost provides, a few pages further on in the same diocesan bulletin, an accurate summary, but without exaggerated enthusiasm.

At the end of this little exhortation, there is no call to prayer for the salvation of departed souls, no mention of the Blessed Virgin, no call to conversion.

In March 2018, Bishop Prevost was elected vice-president of the Peruvian Bishops’ Conference. His return to Rome loomed on the horizon the following year, with his appointment by Pope Francis as a member of the Congregation for the Clergy, then in 2021, as a member of the Congregation for Bishops. It was during this period that Bishop Prevost seems to have been particularly involved in the Sodalitium Christianæ Vitæ affair, which led to the removal of Archbishop José Antonio Eguren of Piura, who was close to this apostolic society, and ultimately to the dissolution of the movement earlier this year by Pope Francis just before his death. He would return to Rome permanently on January 30, 2023 when the Holy Father appoints him head of the Dicastery for Bishops.

FROM CHICLAYO TO ROME.

For two years, Archbishop Prevost would carry out this special and very important mission of proposing to the Holy Father possible candidates for the episcopate, with the exception of territories under the jurisdiction of the Dicastery for Evangelisation.

“On the other hand, one of the main tasks of the Prefect is to accompany the bishops, men ordained to the episcopate, in their experience and journey following the Lord as priests. This work requires above all that we remain at their side, seeking more effective ways to ensure that the pastors of God’s people know that they are not alone,” Cardinal Prevost himself explained in September 2023 during an interview published by the Order of Saint Augustine. It should be noted that he works with three women, appointed by Pope Francis before he became head of the Dicastery. “We have seen on several occasions that their point of view is enriching. Two are religious and one is a laywoman. Their perspective often coincides perfectly with what other members of the Dicastery say, while at other times their opinion introduces a different perspective and becomes an important contribution to the process. I think their appointment is more than just a gesture by the Pope to say that there are now women here too. They offer real and meaningful participation in our meetings when we discuss candidates’ files.”

What are the fundamental qualities of a bishop?

According to Cardinal Prevost, who is undoubtedly painting his own portrait, a bishop must be a man in relationship with God – the Cardinal undoubtedly means that he must be a man of prayer, as he himself is – capable of creating a true community around him “by learning to live his membership in the Church to the fullest, which requires a lot of listening and dialogue”. Thus, he must work with his brother bishops, with priests “and above all with the people of God”. It is a matter of listening to one another, learning to listen to the Holy Spirit and “the spirit of seeking the truth that lives in the Church. Moving from an experience where authority speaks and everything is done, to an ecclesial experience that values the charisms, gifts and ministries present in the Church.”

This is therefore a fundamental challenge to the personal authority of the bishop. “We must not hide behind an idea of authority that no longer makes sense today. The authority we have is that of serving, accompanying priests, being pastors and teachers.” Here, Cardinal Prevost’s terms, particularly that of “serving,” are clearly ambiguous. It is obvious that the exercise of authority must be understood as an eminent service to the Church. It is even more obvious that the exercise of authority must be understood as being directed solely to the good of priests and the faithful and not to the personal advantage of those who exercise it. As our Father wrote in his commentary on the constitution Lumen Gentium, “it is, however, inappropriate, equivocal and dangerous always to present it as a ‘service’ to the community, because the community neither dominates nor governs it. The leader is not the domestic of his subjects!”●

What matters above all, for Bishop Prevost, is the bishop’s spirit of listening, his ability to be close to each of those who form a community around him, especially his priests, for whom he is “father and brother.” The guiding principle of Bishop Prevost, who by the grace of God became Pope Leo XIV, was that the bishop must form a community around him, whether clerics or laity, who constitute the people of God whom he must know, consult and listen to. At first glance, this is the whole synodal spirit of the Church, as it has been gradually defined during the various assemblies convened by Pope Francis on the occasion of the Synod on Synodality, with this effacement of the hierarchical nature of the exercise of authority, this theory of listening to the people of God.

Nevertheless, Cardinal Prevost intends to preserve the distinction between lay people and priests: “We must consider lay people as lay people. This is one of the many gifts that have evolved in recent years: discovering that they have a very important role to play in the Church. As long as, as Pope Francis says, they do not assume the role of the clergy and become clerical, and as long as they live their own baptismal vocation, which is what it means to be part of the Church, we begin to live with greater clarity.”

What about religious consecration, to which our Father was very attached and which is certainly the answer to this foolish promotion of the laity? “I believe that the witness of religious life, even if there may be fewer examples in the future, still has a crucial value because of what it means to live out this aspect of consecration, of total surrender of one’s life to the Lord and to the service of others. The priesthood has, and will continue to have, a very important role in the life of the Church and of all believers. I would therefore say that developing a more complete understanding of the Church and continuing to live this ministry – the priestly ministry – with its immense wisdom, can help us to better deal with the problems that may arise and strengthen our conviction that we are continuing to move forward, that the Lord is not abandoning His Church. Neither yesterday, nor today, nor tomorrow. Personally, I live this reality with great hope.”

To seminarians who have doubts about their vocation, Cardinal Prevost seems to step outside his official role and the ‘conciliar clerical jargon’ that goes with it, to reveal his heart as a religious, a spiritual director, in short, a shepherd of souls: “I remember when I was a novice, an elder brother visited us and simply said a word that still resonates with me: persevere. We must pray for this perseverance, because none of us is exempt from difficult moments, whether we are married, single or Augustinians. We cannot give up at the first sign of difficulty, otherwise, and this is important, we will never achieve anything in life. Perseverance is a great gift that the Lord is ready to offer us. But we must learn to welcome it and integrate it into our lives in order to be strong. It is one of those gifts that is built up over time, in the small trials of the beginning that help us to be stronger, to be able to carry the Cross when it becomes heavier. It helps us to start moving forward, and then to keep moving forward.”

For the rest, the bishop must be a good administrator, which Cardinal Prevost certainly was in Chiclayo. “But if I had to highlight one quality above all others, it would be that of proclaiming Jesus Christ and living the faith in such a way that the faithful see in his witness an incentive to want to participate ever more actively in the Church that Jesus Christ Himself founded. In a few words: helping people to know Christ through the gift of faith.”

There is always this call to be part of the Church, to participate in the life of the Church, to proclaim Jesus Christ. But there is no reminder of the need to submit to His yoke, to His Gospel Law. There is no call to convert, to do penance, to receive the Sacraments in order to imitate and follow Jesus, even to the Cross, in order to ultimately gain Heaven and escape Hell. None of that.

Would this not be a convenient way to pass over in silence the dogma of the faith that the Church has received from Jesus Himself and from the Apostles He chose, to ignore the binding dogmas, the infallible teachings, so as not to submit to them? Would this not be precisely the meaning of these words: “We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine, with how to live our faith, but we risk forgetting that our first mission is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ and to bear witness to our closeness to the Lord. That is the first thing to do: to communicate the beauty of faith, the beauty and joy of knowing Jesus. This implies that we ourselves must live it and that we must share this experience”?

RELIGION OF THE EARTH OR RELIGION OF HEAVEN?

Father John J. Lydon McHugh, of the Order of Saint Augustine, published a book in June 2024 with the Publishing Fund of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru entitled La doctrina social de la Iglesia, which presents the social doctrine of the Catholic Church in an orderly and systematic manner. Written primarily for students, the book follows a chronological line from Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum novarum to the most recent documents of Pope Francis. What is the interest of this book? Its preface, written by Cardinal Prevost, who offers some reflections on this subject that is close to his heart, without imagining that he would one day become Pope and that he would then have the opportunity to implement certain ideas on this subject. The text is disappointing in every respect. It shows that the author’s mind is deeply imbued with the spirit of the Second Vatican Council.

First of all, Bishop Prevost questions the meaning that should be given to the word ‘doctrine.’ According to him, “the social doctrine of the Church does not aim to ‘indoctrinate’ people who seek answers in ecclesial reflection. Indoctrination is immoral, it prevents critical judgement, it undermines the sacred freedom of respect for one’s own conscience – even if it is mistaken – and it closes the mind to new reflections because it rejects movement, change or the evolution of ideas in the face of new problems. On the contrary, social doctrine aims “to promote genuine access to social issues” without waving “the flag of possessing the truth, either in terms of analysing problems or in terms of resolving them. In social matters, it is more important to know how to approach problems than to give a hasty answer about causes or solutions.”

Cardinal Prevost then questions the Church’s right to involve herself in social issues. “Is the Church only there to administer the Sacraments and bring believers together to pray in community?” asks the cardinal, who then contrasts Marxist ideology – which criticises religion for focusing solely on Heaven in order to make people more accepting of the social injustices they may suffer – with liberal ideology, which denies religion any ‘say’ in the realm of economic, social and political relations. Cardinal Prevost defends the Church’s right to involve herself in such matters, on the one hand to remind the world “that we cannot fall under ideological domination, whatever the ideology in question,” and on the other hand to “create a moral conscience, with moral criteria and authentic ethical principles, while respecting the critical judgement of each individual and the autonomy of peoples and their governments,” because social issues are first and foremost moral issues that must be analysed according to moral criteria and principles.

The Cardinal continued: “I am sure that many consider the Church’s intervention in social issues to be inadequate and inappropriate. The vertical and horizontal dimensions of the Church sometimes seem irreconcilable. Those who prefer a vertical Church, focused solely on God, are certainly not wrong; but neither do I think that those who turn to their brothers and sisters and want to see the horizontal dimension of the Church as part of their mission are mistaken.”

He then moved on to social issues that Cardinal Prevost considers new and which require a new approach from the Church: “The reality of violence against women, the need to respond to the sad and humiliating crisis of child abuse, the reality of abuse of power or conscience, attention to the divorced and remarried and to members of the LGBT community; ecology and the protection of our common home, the protection of the Amazonian peoples, to name but a few social issues that require analysis and a response.” One is somewhat stunned by the future Pope’s concerns and looks forward to the analyses and responses he might give if, as he has written, he intends to do so on the basis of “fundamental moral principles such as the dignity of the person, the common good, solidarity, freedom of conscience, among many other fundamental principles that this book presents in a remarkable way,” while admitting that “part of the Church’s reflection will remain in certain theological aspects.” So we remain in a state of anticipation and doubt.

Here is what we think is worth saying.

Cardinal Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, is influenced by many doctrinal errors that have spread within the Church under Paul VI and John Paul II. Nevertheless, he does not seem to be a man of ideological partisanship, even though he is faced with a question to which he may not, in his own eyes, have the answer. This question arises from the opposition between “those who prefer a vertical Church, turned solely towards God” and “those who turn towards their brothers and sisters and want to see the horizontal dimension of the Church as part of their mission”.

This opposition between these two ‘dimensions’ was experienced by Bishop Prevost in Peru, within the diocese of Chiclayo itself: between those focused on serving God and souls and those concerned with remedying the social and ecological miseries faced by the Peruvian people by freeing them from the ‘poverty, injustice and inequality’ of which they are victims. Bishop Prevost refused to take sides in this antagonism and seemed to have led these two ‘dimensions’ of the Church’s service head-on, sharing his time and moving seemingly easily from one to the other. Of course, we must go to Mass, of course, we must receive the Sacraments, of course, we must pray. But it is possible to do more. We must also care for those who suffer from poverty, hunger and war. The religion of Heaven is all very well. Nevertheless, we must understand that our religion is also fraternal charity. This sums up Bishop Prevost’s apparent thinking.

Our Father would not be far from thinking the same thing about a religion that is entirely focused on Heaven, which he did not hesitate to describe as ‘mediocre’. What is a mediocre religion? “It is to believe first of all that our religion is not for the earth,” he explained in a sermon at Vespers on the feast of the Epiphany on January 6, 1985. “It is not for now; it is a set of prayers and Sacraments that obviously do not change our earthly condition, but thanks to which we will have the right to go to Heaven. That is already a great deal!

“But ultimately, our religion is confined to the intimate realm of the soul. Our religion has nothing to do with politics, with war or peace, with unemployment, with family difficulties (...). For those who practise it, it seems that this is the true religion! I could give examples of bishops I knew in my youth: religion meant administering the diocese, ensuring there were vocations, that there were priests to send to parishes, nuns to send to hospitals, etc.” Like the bishops whom Bishop Prevost succeeded in the see of Chiclayo?

Then, feigning to take the opposite side, that of liberation theology, our Father continues: “That is all very well in its own way, it seems that that is how you have to live to get to Heaven. But in the meantime, people are oppressed; in the meantime, there is war, famine... Now, for the rest, we have to roll up our sleeves (...). When we leave our church after reciting the Rosary, we have to go and find the people who are dying of hunger, who are being exploited by their bosses, and we have to set up trade unions, raise awareness among the population, we have to get down to work! It is charity that will bridge the gap. We have been taught too much about a religion of Heaven. Now we must understand that our religion is also fraternal charity.”

This antagonism between ‘the religion of Heaven’ and ‘the religion of earth’, far from being resolved after the death of Pope Francis, seems to be dividing the hierarchy more than ever. Cardinal Sarah, as Leo XIV’s personal envoy, has just declared vigorously, not to say with a certain authority, on July 26, before 30,000 pilgrims who flocked to the shrine of Saint Anne d’Auray for the 400^th anniversary of the apparition of the patron saint of Brittany to Yvon Nicolazic: “Too often in the West, religion is presented as an activity in the service of human well-being. Religion is equated with humanitarian actions, acts of charity, welcoming migrants and the homeless, promoting universal brotherhood and peace in the world. Spirituality is seen as a form of personal development, there to bring a little relief to modern man, who is preoccupied with his usual political and economic activities. Although these issues are important, this view of religion is false. Religion is not a question of food or humanitarian actions. In the desert, this was the first temptation that Jesus rejected. To redeem humanity, we must overcome the misery of hunger and poverty, which is what the Devil proposes to the Lord. But Jesus replies that this is not the path to redemption. He makes us understand that even if all men had enough to eat, if prosperity extended to all, humanity would not be redeemed.”

Yet, Pope Leo XIV, commenting on the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves last June 22, on the solemnity of the Feast of Corpus Christi, said this: “This is the logic that saves the hungry people: Jesus acts in God’s style, teaching others to do the same. Today, instead of the crowds mentioned in the Gospel, there are entire peoples, humiliated by the greed of others even more than by their own hunger. Faced with the misery of many, the accumulation of wealth by a few is a sign of indifferent arrogance, which breeds suffering and injustice. Instead of sharing, opulence wastes the fruits of the earth and the labour of man. Particularly in this Jubilee Year, the example of the Lord remains for us an urgent criterion for action and service: to share bread, to multiply hope, is to proclaim the coming of the Kingdom of God.” Then the Supreme Pontiff, after this exaggerated naturalism, continued as follows: “Our hungry nature bears the mark of an indigence that is filled by the grace of the Eucharist. As Saint Augustine writes, Christ is truly ‘panis qui reficit, et non deficit; panis qui sumi potest, consumi non potest’ (Sermon 130, 2): bread that nourishes and does not run out; bread that can be eaten but is not exhausted. The Eucharist, in fact, is the true, real and substantial presence of the Saviour (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 413), Who transforms bread into Himself, to transform us into Him. Alive and life-giving, the Corpus Domini makes us, that is, the Church herself, the body of the Lord.”

These “two dimensions” of the Church do indeed give rise to an apparently insoluble antagonism. Cardinal Sarah pointed out, again in his sermon on July 26: “We were created to praise and worship God. It is in the worship of God that we discover our true dignity, the ultimate reason for our existence. It is on our knees before God that man discovers his true greatness and nobility. And if we do not worship God, we will end up worshipping ourselves.” This is a salutary reaction on the part of a cardinal provoked by the worst aberrations of the late Pope Francis. But where he is mistaken, and misleads us, is in fearing a cult of man only for tomorrow. For this very cult has been practised in word and deed within the Church since 1965, since the closing speech of the Second Vatican Council, during which Pope Paul VI proclaimed to the applause of all the Fathers in Saint Peter’s Basilica: “We also, we more than anyone else, have the cult of man.” This is the error at the root of the agonising struggle in which the Church finds herself, torn between the religion of Heaven and the religion of earth.

With our Father, we must remember that “the Church never lost interest in the life of man, in his ‘praxis’, in his history. She has always known and appreciated ‘temporal values’, but she made God their point of reference and not the cult of man. She made earthly things subject to a divine, Christian, and therefore supernatural morality that comes from God and is directed towards God.”●

On this basis, our Father distinguishes three stages in the history of the Church.

First, the time of the apostolic Church, the Church of persecution, during which the first generations of Christians took no interest in the work of the world. “It is the Gospels, which record the Lord’s own words, the Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse, which instilled in the early Christians as divine revelation that, in the imminence of the Parousia, temporal goods were of little importance compared to eternal ones. ‘there is no permanent city for us here; we are looking for the one which is yet to be’ (He 13:14). ‘For the form of this world is passing away’ (1 Co 7:31) ‘But the present heavens and earth are reserved by the word of God and are kept for fire. In those days the earth will be consumed with the works it contains.’ (2 P 3:7-9)” (ibid.)●

Then came the era of medieval Christianity, during which the Church did not contradict this Gospel of contempt for the world. But as the Empire became Christendom and faith took root in society, “the temporal allowed itself to be subjected to the eternal (...), carnal values were held to be servants of the spiritual ones (...), the ‘two swords’, that of the Pope, wholly religious, and that of the Emperor, political, one subject to the other, ruled the world in the name of God.” Father Congar himself was forced to admit that during the time of Christianity, “secular realities (...) were more or less directly brought back to the specific purposes of the Church and the rules enacted by it.” (ibid.)●

Finally, during the Counter-Reformation and the Renaissance, the Church persisted in her determination to submit everything to Christ, as Saint Pius X vigorously recalled. “It simply encountered new and considerable obstacles: on the one side was the Renaissance and its pagan humanism, on the other side, to the contrary, was this Protestant Reformation that isolated faith from works and cut religion off from life. The two elements of Christian social order were then separated, on the one hand nature was torn away from Christ, and on the other, the supernatural was confined to the conscience. Condemning the Lutheran heresy at the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation set out to re-conquer humanism and came to terms with it during the Catholic Renaissance of the 17^th century, which still lasts and which made the Church into the great mistress and incomparable guardian of Western civilisation, until Pius XII.

“How can that be? By structuring three sciences into a single supernatural wisdom: Dogma establishes the transcendent ends of individuals and human society as a whole, Morality orders all temporal activity according to God’s law with a view to the acquisition of eternal goods, and the Church’s family, social and political doctrine suggests and promotes empirical solutions that happily reconcile the perfection of Christian life with the temporal common good. This entire magisterial theology constitutes Christian humanism.” (ibid.)●

The Revolution, however, sought to break “with this order in which the natural is integrated into supernatural wisdom and practice. Heirs to all the rebels of history, the French revolutionaries wanted to create a modern world – that is the key word here – a humanity freed from the law of the priests, which would be its own centre and its own end. This revolutionary current would tear the world away from the Church piece by piece, and it is sad to note, as our Father observes, that modern theologians interpret this struggle by adopting the point of view of the adversary: the Church of the Counter-Reformation had turned so far away from temporal human good that modern people could only save humanity and work for its progress by declaring war on the Church and stripping her of all power over worldly matters.”

Blessed Pius IX and Saint Pius X courageously fought against this revolutionary spirit, supported by the Sacred Heart and by the Immaculate Virgin in person at the Rue du Bac and at Lourdes.

During the Second Vatican Council, however, the men of the Church, in order to spare themselves and to appeal to this world which they admired and which nevertheless was fighting the Church, wanted to prostitute her by adopting new, false principles, mainly through the agency of Gaudium et Spes, purportedly a constitution of a pastoral character. This constitution determines “the construction of a new world” on earth, in which all men and all social groups cooperate in a fraternal union for the “liberation” and “salvation” of humanity. “The Gospel is the bond of this construction in its modern form of the cult of man, his dignity and his rights. The Church provides both this Gospel and the disinterested animation of this unprecedented human effort to fulfil God’s plan for the world, with the collaboration of all religions and human ideologies.” (ibid.)●

So the Church began indulging in an exaggerated naturalism, although ‘vocation,’ ‘liberation,’ and ‘the salvation of man’ are not of a temporal, human, and political order, but of a religious, moral and transcendent order. Furthermore, the Church also blinded herself by delusional optimism, since the struggle, the effort to conquer the Kingdom of God, is not man’s, but God’s; they are the work of grace within us, not of humanity’s ‘good will’ and ‘new energies,’ even less of a ‘divine seed’ and a ‘Spirit’ that would be commonly spread among all men as a native energy and nobility. And the Church, once again, promoted a humanism “falsely made out to be evangelical and Christian, according to which faith and the Catholic religion’s providential function would be to serve as the spiritual driving force of this construct, to be the soul of the world in its progress, proffering its advice and examples, its lights and energies to assure success in winning the happiness of every man by man for all men.” (ibid.)●

What should be the response of the Church and Leo XIV in order to perfectly ‘coincide’ with what he wrongly designates and distinguishes as the ‘vertical and horizontal dimensions’ of the Church?

Every human destiny is unique, but it is realised in two stages: first the earthly stage and then eternal life. But the break does not occur at the moment of bodily death, “but at the death and resurrection experienced in Christ, which make the Jew and the pagan into Christians, the sinner into a saint, the man doomed to eternal death into a living being endowed with a perfection which is eternal in itself. This is the individual and social foundation of Christian humanism,” explains our Father.● Once converted, the Christian “possesses within himself, by grace, messianic joy, a foretaste of eternal bliss, and the peace that guides him in the ways of moral justice and holiness. Earthly life in all its conjugal, familial, economic and political forms becomes the place of this transfiguration and the very matter of this spiritualisation.” (ibid.)● And this concerns man taken both individually and collectively, that is, the whole of society, from the family to the whole of humanity, including the factory, the corporation, the school, and the nation, when they are won over to Christ. “The truth of Christ, the sacramental grace of Christ, the evangelical law of Christ guarantee to these societies of a temporal nature, their order come from Above, their movement, their life, their cohesion. Not as the world sees them, wants them, and claims to build them, but to the extent that God wills and in the imperfection of what is perishable, but in an admirable manner (...). There is no life for society or for individuals other than in the supernatural order of the grace of Christ. It is on this foundation that, in addition, natural communities, like the present life of each individual, receive a certain fulfilment that no other saviour can provide: ‘Without me you can do nothing.’ And: ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain.’ ”●

As a result, “the Church preaches the Kingdom of God by means of her dogma and turns Christians away from expecting anything from the world here below. By virtue of this supernatural vocation that she makes known to them, she claims and obtains generously an effort of conversion and moral virtues that make of each servant of God an enthusiastic servant of his brothers, a useful element for society! Thus justice, peace, friendship and even their accompanying material goods, prosperity, the arts and the joy of living grow imperceptibly as a result of this moral and mystical effort of the Christian people, inspired by the example of the saints. Without having sought it in the first place, and even less having expected it from a world government or the establishment of elaborate structures, Christianity improves its earthly living conditions, as if without thinking about it (...). Thus, in Christianity, the law obliges us to do good, and the grace dispensed by the Church makes it possible.” (ibid.)●

Only Christ, diffused and communicated in the Church, has the power to change the heart of man and thus to change societies. Hence this invocation of Saint Charles de Foucauld, which he put into practice throughout his life as a monk-missionary even to the point of shedding his blood: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, Your Kingdom come!”

A MARIAN THEOLOGY OF LIBERATION.

Even at that, faith is necessary. “But when the Son of man comes, will He find faith on earth?” asked Our Lord, foreseeing these times of apostasy that we are living through today and that Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus wished to live through in order to bear witness to her fidelity to her divine Spouse. What, in this day of widespread apostasy, is the essence of what is and remains the faith of the Church, which no Council has been able to reform? “It is the certainty of the original fall of humanity whereby, through its own fault, it became Satan’s wretched slave, but also the certainty of its redemption accomplished on the Cross by Jesus Christ, Son of God and man like us; finally, the certainty of Heaven reopened to redeemed humanity, washed in water and the Holy Spirit through baptism, united with Jesus Christ as His own Body in a Church wholly turned by Love towards the consummation of its eternal union with the Triune God.

“Such is our faith, such is the threefold certainty which, with its threefold rays, casts a dazzling light on our smallest actions: like the human condition in its generality, the smallest gesture of the least among us can only be fully explained by the three acts of this drama: he is a sinner and fallen from his first state; he is saved by grace in Jesus Christ; he is on his way to eternal life with God. Nothing in being, in life, in the movement of the world, or in ourselves escapes this triple belonging, and nothing belongs to any other doctrine, any other faith, any other mysticism than this,” wrote our Father in 1959 in his study on Progressivism●, preceding his critical chronicle of the conciliar debates.

Will Pope Leo XIV defend this threefold certainty of the dogma of the faith? This is a question that we cannot yet answer, one way or the other. The defence of the dogma of the faith in order to restore the teaching of the Church, in all its purity, the plan of grace and mercy through the Cross of Jesus Christ, which everyone is required to follow and imitate, would imply undoing and redoing what Vatican II sought to build, in particular the cult of man. This cult is very appealing in all that it implies in the presentation of a religion and a Gospel that are so undemanding that, with demagoguery and flattery, holiness can even be advocated for all! One should, however, have the courage “to first recall the essential duties of religious practice, the commandments of God and the Church, the basic virtues and the indispensable moral asceticism.”●

In 1917, in the council of His Holy Trinity, God our Father decided to send His Most Holy Mother into the sky of Fatima to come to the aid of the Church so that, in accordance with His promises Mt 16:15-19 the gates of Hell that threaten her may not prevail definitively, and to prepare for the return of His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Fatima is not simply a Message. It is an Apocalypse – that is, a Revelation – and even a Gospel: a Good News. Jesus wants His Most Holy Mother to precede. He wants to give Her everything, to lead everything to Her in order to receive everything from Her, to give everything to Her, so that She Herself may distribute His blessings, all His graces to all. From Fatima, in Portugal, the Blessed Virgin exercises a true regency, a mediation to ensure the salvation of souls, of nations and, above all, of the Church.

Our hope is that Pope Leo XIV will one day recommend, for the universal Church, the devotion of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, well adapted to all nations, whether French, Peruvian or even American. This Church devotion, in which lay people, religious and priests each play their part, will truly be the salvation of nations, souls and the Church. By practising it, together they will go to the “peripheries of the Church”, choose this preferential option for the poor, place themselves in the service of the poorest, in the service of the great migrants in this “valley of tears”, that is to say, they will put themselves in the service of poor sinners, sacrificing themselves to prevent them from falling into Hell. And in so praying, they console the Immaculate Heart of Mary. These three demands are one and the same thing. By this simple devotion, the whole economy of salvation and the mystery of the Redemption, today totally or virtually neglected by the Hierarchy, will immediately be re-established in the Church. It would be an admirable act of both authority and humility on the part of the Holy Father to submit his Magisterium to a will of God, expressed in person by the Blessed Virgin and transmitted by Sister Lucy.

May the Holy Father deign to seek the Kingdom of the Immaculate and Her Justice, without which he can do nothing, and the rest will be added unto him!

Brother Pierre-Julien of Divine Mary.