Author: Priest Juan Roger Rodríguez Ruiz

I want to express my profound joy and gratitude to God for having allowed me to know a person chosen from eternity to be the Vicar of Christ.

It is a grace that the Church has chosen him as her universal pastor for this current time, so adverse and difficult, but which at the same time inspires hope that never disappoints, as a fulfillment of the Lord’s promise.

I fondly remember Father Roberto Prevost as my professor of Canon Law at the San Carlos y San Marcelo Major Seminary in Trujillo, Peru. He was a simple and kind person, very intelligent, but above all, approachable, with a listening attitude.

From Chicago to Chiclayo

He was certainly born in Chicago, but I believe he forged his priestly and episcopal identity in Peru, where he became incarnated as a missionary by sharing his faith experience with the common people, from whom he learned to have a Peruvian heart.

When he taught us, he had just begun his doctorate in Canon Law. He was methodical, knew how to explain, and his classes were interesting, highlighting his genuine spirit, his desire to learn about this Peruvian land, but above all, his availability and closeness.

I have a picture in my mind of him, very young, 33 years old, chatting after class in the seminary hallway. There, he continued to explain to us some of the topics that arose in class, always doing so with kindness.

He was sober, prudent, and spoke little, but when he did, it was with propriety, knowledge, and at the same time, charity. I think he found it hard to get upset.

On the day of the author’s priestly ordination, January 5, 1992, with the presence of then-Father Robert Prevost, OSA

Sensitive and generous

Another fond memory is the day of my priestly ordination in 1992, where he was present; his face expressed recollection and serenity. It was a joy to have our professor there on the day of our priestly ordination, and even more so to know that the now Pope Leo XIV had laid hands on me.

When he was elected Pope and took the name Leo XIV, I immediately associated it with one of his classes where he also spoke to us about Leo XIII, as the Pope who had faced a unique time during the Industrial Revolution and who, with the Encyclical Rerum Novarum, addressed the social question and the defense of human dignity and work.

Now he tells us that we are also facing the revolution of technology and artificial intelligence, a world no longer divided between capital and labor, but between people and algorithms.

I can say that he is a missionary with evangelical zeal, with wisdom and prudence to know how to conduct himself, but above all with a generous heart that manages to discover the presence of Jesus Christ in every person and circumstance.

Our experience tells us that he is a simple and approachable man, a Christian of profound faith and human sensitivity, and a pastor who knows his own people. In short, he is a prudent and bold Pope, with doctrinal clarity, evangelical intuition, and apostolic audacity that proclaims the joy of the Gospel.

Father Juan Roger Rodríguez Ruiz was a student of the then Father Robert Prevost, OSA—now Pope Leo XIV—and is currently the rector of the Catholic University of Chimbote, in northern Peru.