Whereas Pope Leo owes his formal training nearly solely to the northern hemisphere, a lot of his shaping as a practitioner occurred in Peru. “These are the life experiences that provide you with life to proceed on, that nourish you,” says Turley, who was Prevost’s superior when he arrived. “As a younger priest, to undergo that, and see how lovely it’s, how poor individuals may be, and but the entire goodness and the facility of individuals once they come collectively, and the great issues that they’ll do if you happen to begin breaking down prejudices and division.” Prevost mentioned as a lot at St. Jude’s: “The a part of ministry that almost all formed my life is Peru.”
After a decade in South America, it should have been fairly an adjustment to tackle the function of head of his residence Augustinian province, which stretches all through the Midwest and into Canada. One in every of his duties as provincial prior was to minister to Augustinian colleges, and he was referred to as in to assist out St. Rita of Cascia Excessive College in Chicago. The scholars have a retreat yearly, and the varsity likes to ask monks who’re unfamiliar to the boys to listen to confession in order that they don’t really feel awkward. In 2000, Prevost was a type of monks. “I had gone to confession a number of instances earlier than, but it surely was like two minutes, let me get out of right here as shortly as I can,” says Patrick “PJ” McCarthy. “However this was extra of only a dialog.” The 2 sat knee to knee within the darkened room and talked about underage ingesting and sibling rivalry, amongst different issues. “He was not judging me, and he was simply very open,” remembers McCarthy. Mike Stawski, who was on the retreat as a scholar chief, seen instantly that Prevost was totally different from most monks. “What was so fascinating about him was that just about instantly, we forgot that he wasn’t with us the entire time. He was so welcoming, so caring for what we had been doing.”
