Pope Leo XIV has close connection with Ireland

Pope Leo XIV during his visit to Cork in 2007. Picture by Gerard Bonus

The election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV has been warmly welcomed throughout the world, but his elevation has received a special welcome in Ireland where he visited on a number of occasions between 2001 and 2013 when he was Prior General of the Augustinian Order.

In 2007, he visited Cork where he participated in an Easter Mass in St Augustine's Church to celebrate the fifty years two local ladies - Peg Bolton and Marie Finn - had sang with the church choir. He is pictured here with them on the altar alongside fellow Augustinians Fr Gerry Horan, Fr Pat Moran and Fr Michael Brennock.

But there is a deeper connection between Pope Leo XIV and the Diocese of Cork and Ross. The new Pope served for many years as a missionary and subsequently as a bishop in Peru. The Diocese of Cork and Ross established a significant missionary presence in Peru in 1965, led by the late Bishop Cornelius Lucey who undertook to respond to the pastoral needs of the shanty-towns on the outskirts of Trujillo, which had grown as a result of migration by farmers from the Andes to the coast in search of a better life.

Bishop Lucey's interest in establishing a mission in Peru came about following the sudden death of a Cork missionary priest in the country. Canon Tom Duggan had left St Patrick's Parish in Cork and joined St James' Missionary Society, founded by Cardinal Cushing of New York. Canon Duggan opted to work in Lima. Just six weeks after his arrival, he was studying Spanish and was running for a bus, when he collapsed and died of a heart attack. Bishop Lucey went to Peru for his funeral and was invited to visit the sandy shanty towns outside the city of Trujillo. Shocked by what he witnessed, he returned to Cork and launched the idea to establish a mission in the region.

Fifty-five priests from the dioceses of Cork & Ross, Kerry, and Cloyne as well as nuns from the Sisters of Mercy, Bon Secours and Presentation Congregations served on mission in La Esperanza, a poor desert periphery of Trujillo, which was Peru's third largest city.

The Irish priests became known locally as Los Padrecitos - the Little Fathers - who served as parish priests and community leaders supported by the nuns.

People arriving in La Esperanza had to contend with a harsh and desperate environment. Often, they had nothing more to live in but wicker huts in the desert slum which had no water or electricity. There were no schools or churches or even streets.

Like Irish missionaries had been doing for decades in the global south, these new missionaries provided religious services, built schools and healthcare centres and other services with money collected in parishes across the three dioceses in Cork and Kerry. They also organised workshops to teach local women crafts to provide them with an income. The Irish missionaries oversaw La Esperanza's evolution into an urban district.

They not only contended with a tough mission but also coped with natural disasters such as the 1970 earthquake which left 60,000 dead in Peru, as well as the terror of the Shining Path movement which waged a war in the 1980s against the government and killed a number of foreign missionaries serving in Peru.

The mission closed in 2004 when the remaining three priests returned home but the nuns remained and were joined by local girls. The late Fr Leonard O'Brien wrote a detailed account of the Cork mission in his 2010 book, "Children of the Sun: The Cork Mission to South America".

Priests and sisters of the Columban Order were the first Irish missionaries to minister in Peru in the 1950s. Other missionaries from the Little Sisters of the Assumption and the Loreto congregations also minister there. As a missionary himself, the new Pope would be well aware of the work of Irish missionaries in his adopted country of Peru.

Cork City Councillor Tony Fitzgerald said the new Pope has a "unique connection" to Cork: "I am delighted with the announcement of the new Pope Leo XIV. I think it is great that he has a connection with the Diocese of Cork and Ross and the work of priests and sisters in Trujillo in Peru. There is a great tradition with the support of the people of Cork over many years, to the mission in Peru through the diocese. It is good that he is familiar with the work of our priests and sisters. So, there is a unique connection there from his time as a missionary himself and as a bishop in Peru".

Independent Ireland's Cork TD Ken O'Flynn said: "I warmly welcome the election of the new Pope and offer him my sincere congratulations as he takes on this profound and historic responsibility. The papacy holds deep significance not only for Catholics here in Ireland, but for people of all faiths and none across the globe who look to the Vatican for spiritual leadership and moral guidance. In a world facing complex social, economic, and humanitarian challenges, I hope this new papacy will be marked by compassion, unity, and a renewed focus on the core values of dignity, justice, and care for the most vulnerable".

As Prior General of the Augustinians, Fr Robert Prevost (known to his colleagues as Fr Bob) also visited Fethard in Co Tipperary in 2005. Jasper McCarthy of McCarthys bar and restaurant in the town recalls that "He has visited Fethard on more than one occasion. He was the General of the Augustinian Order and he came to town for the celebration of 700 years of the Abbey in Fethard. Fr Gerry Horan was the head of the Order in Ireland at the time, and was based in Fethard, so Pope Leo was actually in Fethard two or three times. And I remember being introduced to him by Fr Gerry when they were in for lunch one day. So, when I heard that a former head of the Augustinian Order was made Pope today, I rang Fr Gerry to see if it was the same man. It was, I've met the Pope".

(Matt Moran is a writer on missionary and religious matters. He is author of "The Legacy of Irish Missionaries Lives On" for which Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, wrote the Foreword. He also authored "The Theology of Integral Human Development: the Role of Faith in International Development and Public Affairs").