Leo tells Peruvian bishops to answer abuse victims with truth and justice
Pope Leo XIV denounced Peru’s widespread culture of “machismo” and violence against women on Thursday, demanding that women be protected and respected as he set out marching orders for a church and country he knows well.
Speaking to Peruvians in Lima’s Plaza Mayor one day after an emotional homecoming, the 71-year-old pope said the violence ran against Christian teaching that proclaims men and women share equal dignity. “It pains us to see that violence against women — who could be our grandmothers, mothers, sisters or daughters — continues to be a reality that wounds all of humanity,” Leo said. He noted that poor, Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian women are doubly penalized and called for all women to be valued, protected and respected.
Gender-based violence is an urgent social issue in Peru. The country recorded 1,261 femicide victims between 2016 and 2024, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics, and the number of women killed because of their gender rose 44% during that period.
“While we’ve made progress with women’s suffrage and in being heard more, femicides are still on the rise — or at least they’re receiving more attention,” said Nicole Cruz, who was in the plaza for the speech. Cruz said she hopes the pope’s words will help unite women and help “men understand that we’re not complaining, but that we want help and to be loved and heard.”
The former Robert Prevost spent two decades as a missionary priest and bishop in Peru and credits the place with teaching him how to be a shepherd. Leo also turned to the business of the church, calling on Peru’s influential Catholic hierarchy to be models of unity and communion and instructing bishops to accompany their flocks. While the clergy sexual abuse scandal has not exploded publicly in Peru as it has in other Latin American countries, Leo identified it as a “reality that has caused us so much pain.”
“We must respond as Jesus would, with truth, justice, forgiveness, making amends and an ever more resolute commitment to fostering a culture of prevention and protection for the weakest in light of such crimes,” Leo said.
The online database BishopAccountability has identified 77 priests, brothers, seminarians and lay consecrated people in Peru who have been publicly accused of sexually abusing minors. Based on trends in other countries, the organization said that number is a “small fraction” of the total, arguing victims have yet to come forward in the overwhelmingly Catholic country, where the church wields significant influence.
Leo, who served as the Peruvian bishops’ point person for welcoming victims while he was bishop of Chiclayo, was expected to meet with survivors during his stay. A protest by a victims group was also planned for later Thursday.
In his instructions to the bishops, Leo held up the example of St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, the 16th-century first archbishop of Lima revered for traveling long distances to be with his flock and for defending the rights of Indigenous and enslaved peoples. Mogrovejo studied Quechua and Aymara and oversaw the printing of the catechism in those Indigenous languages because he believed the faith had to be transmitted in a language people could understand. Being a bishop, Leo said, means “entering people’s homes, accompanying the sick, meeting young people and reaching out to communities which, due to their geographical remoteness or social vulnerability, are rarely able to make their voices heard.”
The welcome matched the occasion. Leo sang along enthusiastically as 40,000 people in the Plaza Mayor serenaded him with “Contigo Perú,” a famous song from Peru’s Pacific coast that celebrates national unity, and drew huge applause when he recited the lyrics of another well-known Creole hymn, “Mi Perú.” Ángel Esquives, a craftsman originally from the pope’s former diocese in Chiclayo who now lives in Lima, said he left his home at 3 a.m. to stand in line to get as close as possible. “It’s a blessing not only for us Chiclayans but for all of Peru,” Esquives said.
Leo showed fine form despite having undergone lung cancer surgery last month, bounding up a steep flight of stairs Thursday morning without any apparent problems — a continuation of the energy he displayed on the first two legs of his South American trip. Leo also showed himself to be as relaxed in public as he has been since his 2025 election. He joked with the bishops that some “doubting Thomases” had predicted he would not be able to come. “But God is great and his grace is bigger than all of us and I’m very happy to be here with you,” he said to applause.
Cardinal Pedro Barreto, the Peruvian president of the Amazonian bishops’ conference who was a close friend of both Prevost and his predecessor, Pope Francis, a Jesuit like Barreto, said Leo is acutely attuned to the needs of the Peruvian people and church and would offer words of consolation and advice during his days crisscrossing the country, from Chiclayo in the north to the Andes and the rainforest. “Leo will listen to the anguish and hopes of the Indigenous peoples, especially the pain caused by the violence affecting girls, boys, adolescents, and young people,” Barreto said. He predicted Leo would pay special attention to a recent case in the province of Condorcanqui, in the northern Peruvian jungle, where teachers sexually abused Indigenous Awajún and Wampis girls.
The Rev. Peter Hughes, an 84-year-old Irish priest who has lived in Peru for more than 60 years, said Leo was comfortable in Peru not only because he made it his home, but because he sees its poverty and political polarization as mirroring the global situation. “That is what makes leaders like Pope Francis and Pope Leo speak the language of the Gospel in very human terms, putting a premium on justice and peace,” Hughes said. “In the Christian sense of justice, the most important people are the poor, the marginalized, and those who have no voice.”