Peruvian Pope Leo’s Lima litmus test

There's turbulence in the Archdiocese of Lima. How will the Peruvian pontiff address it?

Pope Leo XIV appointed on Thursday Fr. Miguel Ángel Contreras Llajaruna, S.M., as auxiliary bishop of Callao, Perú. It was the first episcopal appointment of his pontificate.

Pope Leo XIV with Cardinal Carlos Castillo of Lima during a dinner for cardinals after the pope’s election Credit: Archdiocese of Lima.

The appointment might not convey much about Pope Leo’s preferences; it might well have been in the works while Pope Francis was still alive — though Pope Leo himself was the apostolic administrator of the diocese in 2020 and 2021, and prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops under Francis, so he’s likely to have had a hand in the appointment, one way or another.

But there is another pending Peruvian episcopal appointment that could serve as a more obvious litmus test for the kind of bishops Pope Leo might prefer to appoint.

Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasogglio of Lima turned 75 in February, meaning he tendered his resignation to Pope Francis during the former pontiff’s hospital stay.

Castillo is a controversial figure in Pero — and beyond. And the Archdiocese of Lima has a rocky history in recent decades.

In light of that, whether Pope Leo allows Castillo to stay in post, or accepts his resignation quickly, could say a lot about the pope’s theological and pastoral priorities.

But whatever the timeline, the man he chooses next for Lima, capital city of the pontiff’s adopted home nation, will likely indicate how the pope perceives his unity mandate in the Church.

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Castillo, who became a cardinal in 2024, has had an unusual record of ministry in the Church, and a tendentious reputation in some ecclesial circles.

Soon after he was made a cardinal, a local priest told The Pillar that an international comparison might best describe Castillo. The cardinal is a “very ‘German’ bishop,” the priest said, suggesting that the cardinal seems to support most of the “progressive” causes in the Church’s life.

Castillo was ordained a priest in 1984. After graduate studies, he taught at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, but he was suspended from that by Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani in 2013, amid allegations of heterodoxy and “attacks on the ecclesiastical hierarchy.”

The university and Castillo did not obey the cardinal’s orders: when Castillo was given a pastoral assignment after his teaching suspension, he refused it and continued teaching at the university.

A pupil of Fr. Gustavo Gutiérrez, OP — one of the founders of the liberation theology movement, Castillo made many controversial statements during his tenure.

In a 2019 interview, he said that “abortion is the destruction of a life,” but added that “it was problematic” when Church authorities tried to stop political initiatives aimed at legally protecting abortion

“I think people should reflect and decide freely,” on abortion” he said.

In a January 2020 lecture, the archbishop criticized Pope Francis, for saying he had converted by praying in front of the tabernacle.

“I’m sorry, but no one converts [through] the tabernacle. We convert through the encounter with people who questions us, and by human dramas through which we can encounter the Lord,” he said.

And while his predecessor, Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, engaged in a decades-long fight with the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru over its endorsement of abortion, gender ideology, and allegedly heretical teachings, Castillo has allowed the university to continue its work without any criticism, even as the university continues to promote sexually explicit workshops and is regularly accused of promoting heterodoxy in theological classrooms.

Castillo has also proven controversial for his pastoral style, and his relationship with parts of the clergy in the Archdiocese of Lima.

Local clergy have told The Pillar that priests perceived as too “conservative” or close to Cardinal Cipriani, Castillo’s predecessor, have been left without pastoral assignments during Castillo’s tenure.

“They’re left without a parish and sent to priestly retirement homes without a pastoral assignment,” a source close to the Archdiocese of Lima told The Pillar.

“Some priests who were close to Cardinal Cipriani, former members of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae [suppressed by Pope Francis last year], or who simply have a reputation for being conservatives, have left the diocese and asked to be incardinated somewhere else. Others stayed but have no pastoral assignments and just celebrate the Mass privately in their homes,” another source in the Archdiocese of Lima told The Pillar.

The same dynamic repeated itself in the Lima seminary.

“There used to be more than 30 seminarians before Castillo arrived, but there are no vocations and the seminary has been slowly emptying. Some seminarians left the archdiocese and went elsewhere after he came,” the source added.

By most assessments, there has been tumult in the Archdiocese of Lima during Castillo’s tenure, with a stark division in the archdiocese between those aligned with the cardinal, and Catholics and clergy of a different theological persuasion.

But according to some local Catholics, the 20-year tenure of Cipriani was something of a mirror image, with Castillo’s predecessor no less inclined toward polemics, and also reportedly likely to marginalize clerics at the opposite end of the theological spectrum.

Added to that is Cipriani’s perceived closeness to the controversial Fujimori regime — criticized as anti-democratic and dictatorial — and the tumult caused by his periodic defence of authoritarian police measures in the country.

Defenders of Cipriani argue that his support was intended as a counterbalance to the Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist organization responsible for numerous massacres and attacks across Peru during the 1980s and 1990s.

At the same time, Peru was a major center of liberation theology, and many within the country believed that proponents of the movement –- despite their public criticism of the Shining Path –- were effectively aiding it through their persistent criticism of the government and their perceived silence in the face of terrorist violence.

But the fight over that, and over Cipriani’s legacy in general, contributed to ongoing dissension in the Lima archdiocese.

If there has been a decades’ long see-saw in the archdiocese, the recent allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of Cipriani have been like a shock to the system, and stirred up long-standing divides and debates over the decades of archdiocesan leadership.

After allegations against Cipriani became public in January, Castillo published an open letter in which he said he had “full trust in the canonical and penal procedures and instruments that the Holy See has used” and said that “while there are people and institutions who refused to acknowledge the truth of the facts and the decisions taken by the Holy See, we invite them all to be reasonable through a path of conversion that implies abandoning… the rejection of truth.”

Castillo is also widely believed to be a force behind Cipriani’s departure from Lima. According to sources in the Archdiocese of Lima, Castillo privately petitioned the apostolic nuncio to Peru to request Cipriani to leave Peru as part of a canonical precept that was privately imposed against Cipriani in December 2019.

For that reason, Cardinal Castillo’s could be a potential litmus test for Pope Leo XIV — especially a test of how Leo might sow unity in a place beset by division.

There’s not much that can be gleaned definitively if Leo allows Castillo to stay as Archbishop of Lima for more than a few months.

It could mean that he will continue Francis’ trend of allowing metropolitans to serve a few years past retirement age, and it might also suggest that Leo will tolerate bishops with Castillo’s leadership style and theological perspective.

But given the various factors involved in personnel moves, leaving Castillo in office as Leo gets his feet under him might not suggest much at all.

On the other hand, if the pontiff quickly accepts Castillo’s resignation, that can be better interpreted as indication of the pontiff’s priorities and intentions.

And the successor appointed will likely say a lot about the pope’s preferences — especially since he knows the members of Peru’s episcopate closely.

All local eyes will be watching to see whether Castillo has a hand in choosing his successor, or whether Leo will choose someone from his own Peruvian orbit, most likely a lesser-known name, rather than a priest given a high-profile in the archdiocese by Castillo himself.

While Pope Leo XIV’s public statements have been welcomed across the ecclesiastical spectrum, he did not enter the conclave (or emerge on the loggia last week) as a known or noted theological conservative.

He has, however, a proven track record of working well with theologically conservative clergy.

Before Bishop Prevost’s arrival in Chiclayo, the diocese had been governed by two bishops of Opus Dei, who led the diocese for a total of 45 years.

But far from breaking with his predecessors, Prevost was well-liked in Chiclayo, and worked well with priests of Opus Dei and the Society of the Holy Cross (a priestly society for diocesan priests connected to Opus Dei), usually appointing them to significant positions in the diocese.

It seems likely that Leo will be looking for someone in a similar mold — able to gain the trust of clerics from all theological stripes, and willing to appoint to leadership positions clerics with different temperaments and dispositions than himself.

But one challenge for Leo could be finding such men. And some observers have begun to speculate that as the pontiff looks for men outside the partisan rancor of diocesan politics in places like Lima, he’ll look for religious, like himself, who come from a different culture, and who might be trained by religious life for a more conciliatory and collaborative leadership style.

It remains to be seen what that will mean for Lima, and for the Church beyond Peru. But the appointment, whenever it comes, will say a lot.