Father Alessio Geraci, a Comboni missionary, is living his second experience in Peru, a land so dear to Pope Leo XIV. A parish priest in Chorrillos, on the southern outskirts of Lima, he is walking together with his people, because the path of hope is traveled together. A country in deep crisis, in the midst of poverty, corruption and violence. But there are those who sow...
A pilgrim of hope in the land of Pope Leo XIV, where hope struggles but resists. Father Alessio Geraci, a Comboni missionary, arrived in Peru in October 2024, but before taking a break in Italy, he had already been there from 2014 to 2019. “A totally divided country, which the news of the election of Father Roberto - as they call him here - has united in joy,” says the missionary born in Palermo in 1983. "The Pope wasn't born here, but he lived a good part of his priestly and missionary life here, inculturating himself and bringing the light of the Gospel. He loved these people, to the point of becoming a Peruvian citizen; he knew their work, sweat and hardship."
Political instability, social poverty. For Fr. Alessio, this is some long-awaited good news. Not just for the (hitherto) unknown diocese of Chiclayo, which heard the greeting in Spanish from the rostrum of St. Peter's, but for the whole of Peru “which is going through a dramatic political, social and economic crisis”. Above all because of the pandemic which, especially among young people, has left several consequences: "Fatigue when leaving the house, suicidal thoughts, difficulty relating to others.
Insecurity and corruption are the greatest scourges of our time. Just remember that between 2019 and 2023, there were four successive presidents of the Republic; then, on December 7, 2022, Pedro Castillo's coup attempt, his arrest and the inauguration of the current president. "In 2023, Peru experienced a wave of violence and repression; the protests left at least 60 people dead; in addition, faced with a corrupt and incompetent political class, the phenomenon of hitmen (who tend to arm young boys) has worsened, so that people are afraid to be on the streets because of robberies and extortion. In the north, you have to pay to go home and the police don't seem to fight crime at all.
Jesus the Traveler. The image that Father Alessio presents in Popoli e Missione is perhaps far from the imagination of the eight-year-old boy who was already cultivating the thought of mission, or the university student enrolled in Languages out of love for other cultures. It was 2007 when, thanks to a summer experience at Missio Giovani (which also introduced him to the Comboni Missionaries), he found himself among the poor of Togo, in the parish where he had grown up. "The spark was lit when I saw how a missionary committed himself every day for others, and in 2010 I entered the Institute. I realized that this was the dream that God had placed in my heart and that I simply wanted to walk with people." And today he walks with his Peruvian brothers, following in the footsteps of “Jesus who is the traveler par excellence, a nomadic God who pitches his tent among us”.
“Walking the road together”. Quoting the Spanish poet Antonio Machado - Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino a al andar - the missionary recognizes the importance of “walking together, in a spirit of synodality” as “priests and prophets by virtue of Baptism, as an outgoing Church, which takes the side of the least and becomes a place of hope”. Hence the awareness: "Being a pilgrim (and not just in the year of the Jubilee) is a responsibility, because it means carrying Jesus, who for the people of his time, crushed by taxes and power, was the compass. How can we give hope to the Peruvian people? By transforming our hearts, to recognize the other as someone to be loved."
The laity as protagonists. Whether on the coast (with urban parish ministry, in the suburbs of Lima, Arequipa and Trujillo), in the jungle (among the 250 scattered villages of the indigenous world) or in the highlands (at 4,000 meters above sea level, where the Andeans need to be reached house by house). "My parish, on the outskirts of the capital, has 100,000 inhabitants and is divided into 13 small communities, accompanied by me and two other priests, but run mainly by lay people, who are constantly being trained and have a deep thirst for God.
He doesn't give numbers, Father Alessio, but the measure of a faith that becomes a life lived and that makes hope tangible because it is realized through the proclamation of the good news. Hope in spite of everything, in a country that suffers, but which has rejoiced in recent months with the Peruvian Pope. He is one of us," said an elderly woman I visited a few days ago, before giving her the anointing of the sick. These people, who know how to open the doors of their homes and their hearts, see in Pope Leo XIV someone who knows them and who has shown himself to be on the side of those who, in their daily lives, try to live life in the best possible way.
Loredana Brigante, Popoli e Missione – SIR