Father Robert Prevost, O.S.A., has long been recognized as a bridge builder—a pastor who listens deeply, builds consensus, and seeks unity without imposing authority. In the third and final episode of our first-ever “Inside the Vatican” Deep Dive series on Pope Leo XIV, we follow his extraordinary journey—from his early years as pastor and formator in northern Peru to the chair of St. Peter.

Pope Leo’s ministry in Peru was marked by his dedication to empowering lay leaders and nurturing vibrant communities amid challenging circumstances. After returning to the United States, he served briefly as provincial of the Augustinians in the Midwest before being elected prior general, leading the order worldwide from Rome for over a decade. During this time, his bridge-building leadership caught the attention of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who would later become Pope Francis.

In 2014, Pope Francis appointed Prevost as bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, where he served for eight years. Before ultimately calling him back to Rome in 2023 to lead the Dicastery for Bishops, Francis made him a cardinal and then elevated him to cardinal-bishop—the highest rank in the College of Cardinals—paving the way for his election as Pope Leo XIV.

Many pin their hopes on him to renew a polarized church. Studying Robert Francis Prevost—as a priest and canon lawyer, Augustinian prior general, bishop, cardinal, and Vatican prefect—reveals who he has become, what his priorities might be, and how he may choose to lead the Catholic Church’s 1.4 billion faithful today.

In this episode, you’ll hear from:

Arthur Purcaro, O.S.A. – Augustinian priest who worked with Pope Leo XIV in Peru and later served on his order’s leadership council when Prevost was Prior General.

Christopher White – Author of Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy (Loyola Press, 2025) and former Vatican correspondent for National Catholic Reporter.

Emilce Cuda – Argentine theologian and Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

Julia Oseka – Student at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and one of the youngest voting members of the Synod on Synodality.

Socorro Cassaro Novoa – Lay leader from Monserrate community in Trujillo, Peru, where Pope Leo XIV helped establish the parish and served as first administrator.

Nila Ruiz Gonzales – Lay leader from Santa María community in Trujillo, Peru, where Pope Leo XIV directed the Augustinian formation house and served as pastor.

Read: "⁠Who is Pope Leo? 5 surprising things I learned while reporting on Robert Prevost,⁠" by Colleen Dulle: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2025/07/10/who-pope-leo-robert-prevost-251107

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Father Robert Prevost’s early years in Peru shaped his ministry and vision for the church—but few know the brutal reality he encountered there in the 1980s and 1990s.

In this second episode of our “Inside the Vatican” Deep Dive series on Pope Leo XIV, we follow the future pope to northern Peru. He first served in Chulucanas as a canon lawyer, helping establish the new diocese after its elevation from an apostolic prelature. Following a brief return to Rome to defend his doctoral thesis, he came back to Peru as a formator for diocesan and Augustinian seminarians and as a pastor in Trujillo. There, he and his fellow Augustinians ministered amid escalating violence and an approaching dictatorship—an experience that shaped the man who now leads the global Catholic Church.

Peru in the late 1980s and early 90s was torn by conflict but also strangely alive with hope. The Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso) and MRTA (Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru), two violent rebel groups, terrorized communities while economic collapse paved the way for Alberto Fujimori’s authoritarian rule. Amid it all, Father Prevost and the Augustinians in Northern Peru pioneered a new model of parish life.

They opened a formation house for young men discerning religious life with the order and helped staff parishes, establishing new chapels and parish communities. They divided sprawling parishes into small zones led by lay teams responsible for prayer, outreach and community life. Two women who worked with him describe how this model empowered the local community. His ministry in Peru didn’t just shape parish structures; it shaped him—teaching him to lead with humility, courage and deep concern for the marginalized.

In this episode, you’ll hear from:

- John Lydon, O.S.A. – Augustinian priest and friend of Pope Leo, with whom he served in parish and formation ministry in Trujillo, Peru

- Socorro Cassaro Novoa – Lay leader from the Monserrate community in Trujillo, Peru, where Pope Leo helped establish Nuestra Señora de Monserrate parish and served from 1992 to 1999

- Nila Ruiz Gonzales – Lay leader from the Santa María community in Trujillo, Peru, where Pope Leo XIV directed the Augustinian formation house and served as pastor in the 1980s and 90s

And don’t forget to come back for the final episode in this series.

Read: "⁠Who is Pope Leo? 5 surprising things I learned while reporting on Robert Prevost,⁠" by Colleen Dulle: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2025/07/10/who-pope-leo-robert-prevost-251107

Help shape the future of the show—take our ⁠end-of-season listener survey⁠.

If you want to hear more deep dives like this, please support this podcast by becoming a digital subscriber to America Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No one expected a pope from the U.S. In this first-ever “Inside the Vatican” Deep Dive series, those who know him best reveal who Pope Leo XIV—“the American pope”—really is.

Across three episodes, we trace his vocation from Chicago’s South Side through his formative years as an Augustinian friar in the Midwest; training as a canon lawyer in Rome; early ministry in Peru as canon lawyer, priest and formator of future friars and diocesan priests; leadership of the Augustinian Order worldwide; a return to Peru as bishop; and, finally, to the Vatican—first as cardinal and now as pope.

In this first episode, host Colleen Dulle takes listeners from the electrifying moment of his announcement as Pope Leo XIV to a discovery uncovered by a genealogist in New Orleans: just two generations ago, census records listed his family as “Black” or “mulatto,” revealing deep Louisiana roots and a history of enslavement.

But we consider far more than his family tree. We hear about his childhood, seminary years shaped by Vatican II and insights from his brothers and friends in the Augustinian Order that reveal the deep-listening, community-focused approach that defined the ministry of the man then known as Robert Prevost.

In this episode, you’ll hear from:

- Jari C. Honora, genealogist and family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection

- Dianne Bergant, C.S.A., Professor Emerita of Old Testament Studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, who taught Pope Leo.

- John Merkelis, O.S.A., Augustinian priest and lifelong friend of Pope Leo

- Arthur Purcaro, O.S.A., Augustinian priest, friend and missionary who worked alongside him in Trujillo, Peru

And don’t forget to come back for the next two episodes in this series.

Read: "Who is Pope Leo? 5 surprising things I learned while reporting on Robert Prevost," by Colleen Dulle: https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2025/07/10/who-pope-leo-robert-prevost-251107

Help shape the future of the show—take our ⁠end-of-season listener survey⁠.

If you want to hear more deep dives like this, please support this podcast by becoming a  digital subscriber to America Media.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Following U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, Pope Leo renewed his persistent plea for peace—condemning escalating violence and urging diplomacy over destruction. This week on “Inside the Vatican,” Colleen Dulle and Gerard O’Connell discuss his appeals for an end to war since his election and his unexpected remarks at the premiere of a play about journalist Paola Ugaz, who exposed abuse in Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a powerful Peruvian lay group suppressed by Pope Francis earlier this year. They also preview Pope Leo’s upcoming retreat to Castel Gandolfo, reviving a papal tradition for rest, reflection and planning.

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Pope Leo appeals for “reason and responsibility” amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran—and lights up the jumbotron in Chicago. This week on “Inside the Vatican,” hosts Colleen Dulle and Gerry O’Connell report on the pope’s plea for peace and his message to 30,000 faithful at Rate Field, where he urged them to be “beacons of hope” in a divided world.

Find full show notes and related links on our ⁠⁠website⁠⁠

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We pause our usual “Inside the Vatican” weekly format to continue the conversation from America Media’s subscriber-only Conclave Debrief event this past Monday, June 9. Hosts Colleen Dulle, Gerard O’Connell, and producer Ricardo da Silva respond to subscriber questions about Pope Leo XIV and the recent conclave.

Gerard compares this conclave with the 2013 election of Pope Francis, highlighting what made it unique. Colleen shares her firsthand experience covering a conclave live from the Vatican for the first time, while Ricardo reflects on the surprising surge in secular media coverage and growing interest in the papacy both in the U.S. and at St. Peter’s. They also answer questions about Pope Leo’s early warnings on artificial intelligence, the urgent need for structural reforms to address the sexual abuse crisis with a focus on survivors, and how his background may shape Vatican-China diplomacy going forward.

Find full show notes and related links on our ⁠website⁠

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Gerard O’Connell shares insights from his interviews with seven cardinal-electors about why they chose Pope Leo XIV: a missionary with a global outlook, a leader known for deep listening, a promoter of synodality, and someone they found deeply credible. We also cover Pope Leo’s first priestly ordinations in Rome, where he urged new priests to live “lives that are known, lives that can be read, lives that are credible.” At the Jubilee Mass for Families, he said, “We must be prepared to defend the family.” Though some saw this as signaling a return to a firmer stance, this is a teaching popes in living memory have always upheld. Plus, Pope Leo blesses riders of the Giro d’Italia as the race passes through the Vatican Gardens.

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Pope Leo XIV met with 5,000 Vatican employees this week, thanking them for their dedication and recognizing their role as the Vatican’s “institutional memory.” To acknowledge their extra work during the papal transition, he surprised them with a €500 bonus. We discuss what this gesture reveals about his leadership style and efforts to boost staff morale. We also recap his packed Sunday schedule: his installation at St. John Lateran, prayers at Pope Francis’s tomb and before the Salus Populi Romani icon, and a meeting with the mayor of Rome. Plus: his renewed calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and release of humanitarian aid, Vatican efforts to mediate peace in the Russia-Ukraine war, and the launch of the Vatican’s redesigned website.

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A week into the papacy of Pope Leo XIV—the first U.S.-born pope—hosts Colleen Dulle and Gerard O’Connell take stock of the emerging contours and dimensions of his leadership. They begin with his private meeting with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and what it might suggest about his diplomatic approach amid tensions between the Vatican and the U.S. over issues like migration and climate. They then turn to his emotional inauguration Mass, where the pope quoted St. Augustine, received the woolen pallium and fought back tears as the Fisherman’s Ring was placed on his finger. Finally, they consider how his early private audiences, formal speeches and video messages suggest a papacy in continuity with Pope Francis, yet possibly distinguished by a more scripted, deliberate style and a gift for expressing ideas with arresting elegance. One phrase he has already repeated might offer a defining glimpse into his papal politic: “disarmed and disarming.”

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Welcome to America magazine’s Conclave Podcast. Our editors are on the ground in Rome covering the first days of Leo XIV’s historic papacy.

Today, Pope Leo met with members of the Vatican press corps and the thousands of other media in Rome covering his election, telling them to be peacemakers and calling for the release of all imprisoned journalists. 

On our final episode recorded in Rome, the team discusses:

How Pope Leo related to the media, and the importance of his message of peace and truth in a world threatened by war and the rise of A.I.

Pope Leo’s meeting with the College of Cardinals on Saturday, in which he signaled that he would continue the work started by Pope Francis

Pope Leo’s “honeymoon” period—and the opposition he will inevitably face

This episode features:

Sebastian Gomes, America’s executive editor of audio and video

Gerard O’Connell, America’s Vatican correspondent 

Ashley McKinless, executive editor and co-host of America’s “Jesuitical” podcast

Links from the show:

Pope Leo XIV calls for the release of imprisoned journalists, tells media to be peacemakers

Full text: Pope Leo XIV’s address to the media

Pope Leo XIV’s message to the cardinals: Vatican II and Pope Francis are here to stay

Full text: Pope Leo XIV’s first formal address to the College of Cardinals

Interview: Chicago’s Cardinal Cupich on why the cardinals chose Pope Leo XIV

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