Pope Leo XIV delivered his first Regina Caeli on Good Shepherd Sunday, coinciding with the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. In his message, he offered four keys to fostering vocations: “Young people must find in our communities: acceptance, listening, encouragement on their vocational journey, and that they can count on credible models of generous dedication to God and their brothers and sisters.”

United with the Holy Father’s invitation, the CARF Foundation is launching a new initiative to pray for vocations: the Light a Digital Candle for Priests campaign to encourage prayer and to support—symbolically with one euro for each digital candle—the integral formation of seminarians and diocesan priests, religious men and women around the world. Light a digital candle and pray. On this website, you can read testimonies from priests and religious men and women who illuminate others with their dedicated lives.

Diocesan priests from Peru who knew Leo XIV

Two of these vocations are Erick and Christian, Peruvian diocesan priests studying at the Ecclesiastical Faculties of the University of Navarra.

Father Erick Vílchez met Pope Leo XIV before being ordained a bishop. He remembers with particular joy the day he participated as master of ceremonies at the episcopal ordination of Robert Francis Prevost; December 12, 2014, when Erick was training as a seminarian at the Seminary of Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo in Peru.

Father Erick’s first encounter with Pope Leo XIV left this memory: “The first time I spoke with Monsignor Prevost, when he had just arrived in Chiclayo, I introduced myself and said, ‘Monsignor, we are in charge of the liturgy; we are here to serve.’ I remember that with his simplicity and a smile he told me, ‘How nice, just in case, I am very obedient. So, let’s prepare in the best way possible.’ There, I saw that closeness, the simplicity of that then Monsignor Robert, now the Holy Father,” Erick declared.

Of the Pope, he emphasizes that he is a “very approachable person, with a great capacity for dialogue, who knows how to listen, smiling, and very obedient. He has great strength. But above all, I would highlight his profound love for the Church.”

Fr. Erick Vílchez belongs to the territorial prelature of Chota, a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Piura. He is currently studying Dogmatic Theology at the Ecclesiastical Faculties of the University of Navarra. It so happens that the Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo Seminary, in the Diocese of Chiclayo, has an agreement with the Faculty of Theology of the University of Navarra for affiliation with the Seminary’s Theological Quadrennium.

On the other hand, Father Christian Munayco Peves, a Peruvian priest from Cañete who recently completed his Licentiate in Canon Law at the University of Navarra, shares some impressions from his brief encounters with Pope Leo XIV when he was Bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo: “I can say that he is an affable, friendly, and very few words, but above all, extremely simple and approachable person.”

For this priest, who comes from a deeply Catholic family that guided him on the path of his vocation, the election of a Peruvian Pope will stir the consciences of young people in Peru to consider their vocation.

You can read the full article here.

About: The CARF Foundation was founded on February 14, 1989, inspired by Saint John Paul II and encouraged by Blessed Álvaro del Portillo, with three goals: to pray for priestly vocations; to promote the good name of priests throughout the world; and to assist in the comprehensive formation of seminarians, diocesan priests, and religious men and women to better serve the Church throughout the world.

From its inception to the present, thanks to the support of its benefactors and friends, the CARF Foundation has funded educational grants for more than 30,000 students with limited financial resources from 131 countries to enhance their intellectual, human, and spiritual formation at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome and at the Ecclesiastical Faculties of the University of Navarra in Pamplona. Among them, 134 students have been ordained bishops and four have been created cardinals.