A moto-taxi passes by the Chapel Santa Rosa Cruz Pampa, where Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, preached as a young missionary in Yapatera, Peru May 11, 2025. REUTERS/Sebastian Castaneda
CHULUCANAS, Peru (Reuters) - Hector Camacho remembers Robert Prevost, set to be formally inaugurated as Pope Leo XIV on Sunday, as a young jeans-wearing missionary from Chicago with broken Spanish, landing in Peru at a time when the country was being torn apart by internal conflict.
Camacho was a young teenager and altar boy in 1985 in the northern Peruvian town of Chulucanas at the edge of the jungle when Prevost arrived to be a parish priest. It was the future pope's first time in a country that would be his home on and off for the next 40 years.
