Since his election, many books have been published about Leo XIV, some more useful than others in trying to understand him, his choices, gestures, and words. Among them, this one by Lecaros and Piscoya stands out, as it tells the story of the pontiff through the country and the Church where Prevost lived for over twenty years. Being Peruvian themselves, the authors set out to listen to the many people who knew father Robert. What emerges is a portrait of a lively Catholicism alongside a clericalism that is hard to uproot; of liberation theology, a response to the scandal of extreme poverty coexisting with immense wealth; of the preferential option for the poor, gradually extended to every form of marginalization based on age, sex, race, and disability; and of social doctrine as a hope for genuine dialogue with the world. We also encounter — still wounded by the discovery of Jean Vanier's misdeeds — accounts of sexual violence and abuse committed by men of the Church. But we also find friendship as a way of life, and Mass extending into everyday life as it moves out into the streets. Here, in the neighborhoods, we meet a man capable of building community through listening and dialogue. A man who became Pope.
Leo XIV. Portrait of a Peruvian Pope
by Véronique Lecaros and César Piscoya
240 pages
Translated by Maria Simoniello
Castelvecchi, 2026
€20