12:15 | Trujillo (La Libertad region), May. 8.
On May 8, 2025, William Reyes Vega learned that he had hugged and shared lunch with a pope.
Since childhood, he had always wanted to meet the Catholic Church’s supreme pontiff, but the closest he had come to achieving that dream was in 2018, when he saw Pope Francis pass just two meters away through downtown Trujillo, in La Libertad region, northern Peru.
After being ordained as a deacon in Trujillo, Reyes Vega was sent in 2024 by the Order of Saint Augustine to Piura’s highlands.
However, a year later he was reassigned to Chulucanas, where he was supposed to be on May 8, 2025.
They had planned to have lunch and leave for Chulucanas at 1:00 p.m., but at 11:00 a.m. they learned that white smoke was rising from the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Immediately, they looked for a television to find out who the Catholic Church’s new leader was.
“It was an enormous joy to learn that Pope Leo XIV was Monsignor Robert Francis Prevost, who had served as Bishop of Chiclayo, who always visited us at the congregation house, and who had been in Chulucanas in 2024 for the order’s 60th anniversary, already as a cardinal,” Reyes Vega recalls.
The first meeting
William — or Father Will, as he is known in the community — met then-priest Robert Francis Prevost Martinez in early 1996, a few months after moving with his parents to the Santa Maria neighborhood.
The Santa Rita de Cascia parish, which Robert Prevost built together with the faithful, was still the Santa Maria Mother of the Catholic Church chapel at the time, and belonged to San Martin parish, located at Ovalo Grau in Trujillo.
William wanted to become part of a religious group. At age 16, he joined the chapel’s Youth Movement, where he remained until he was 34, when he decided to follow Christ’s calling and enter the seminary.
It was there that he met Robert Prevost, whom he and the other young people always affectionately called “Padre (Father) Roberto.” Under his leadership, they worked in the city’s most underprivileged areas.
There, he officiated Masses, celebrated Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Christmas, or organized various activities to help those most in need.
“He always asked us not to forget the most needy. For me, he was and remains a role model within community life. A man of few words, but with a very profound message; of great simplicity, without aspirations of grandeur or positions of power, yet God has allowed him to take on this service as leader of the Church,” William says.
The hug in Brazil
Two years before entering the seminary, William traveled to Brazil to take part in World Youth Day.
Father Roberto Prevost also attended the gathering. By then, he was already Prior General of the Order of Saint Augustine, meaning the congregation’s top leader worldwide.
Despite the time that had passed since their farewell in Trujillo in 1999, William was surprised that Prevost still remembered him and asked about his family. After that came the hugs.
An unforgettable memory
A year ago, Deacon William asked the Youth Movement’s WhatsApp group to pray together for the College of Cardinals to choose Cardinal Robert Prevost as the new Pope.
The person who remembers that prayer chain is his friend Orlando Flores Rodriguez, chairman of the Brotherhood of the Virgin Candelaria del Socorro in Huanchaco.
“I was working on the computer when I learned that white smoke had appeared, so I decided to follow the live broadcast to find out the name of the new Pope. After nearly an hour of waiting, we learned that it was Cardinal Robert Prevost, who had spent many years in Trujillo carrying out a pastoral mission,” he recounts.
Orlando says that Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation dealt a heavy blow to the Catholic faithful’s morale; however, Pope Francis’ presence helped greatly, especially because he confronted priests and religious groups involved in child abuse scandals, bringing fresh air to the Church.
“Beyond the mistakes, the presence of Pope Leo XIV keeps the Church alive and makes more and more people interested in learning about the places where he lived and traveled,” he adds.
Orlando now asks God that Pope Leo XIV come to Peru and crown the Virgin Candelaria del Socorro of Huanchaco, where the sanctuary bells also rang loudly on May 8, 2025, following Leo XIV’s election.
As is known, Pope Leo XIV was born in the United States but also holds Peruvian nationality.
(END) LPZ/MAO/MVB
Publicado: 8/5/2026
