Bishop Prevost Promoted Women’s Leadership in Peru
In Chulucanas (1985–1987), the young Father Prevost thought that women sustained parish life and began giving them an active place in pastoral work like “evangelizers”.
In a second stage, from 1990 to 1999, this co-responsibility became a formation project in Trujillo. There he encouraged his fellow Augustinians to work alongside women with "equal responsibilities" in the two parishes Santa María and Nuestra Señora de Monserrate.
Piscoya writes about a certain Alicia Azabache who was appointed coordinator of pastoral work and told Father Prevost that she knew nothing. He replied: “Neither do we… We will learn with you.”
He deepened this path later as Bishop of Chiclayo (2016–2022), where he placed several women in charge of formation and pastoral organization.
María Leticia Amésquita, a consecrated lay member of the Third Order of the Augustinians and responsible for catechesis at Santa Rita de Cascia Parish in Trujillo (1992), remembers that Father Robert promoted an outward-looking pastoral style, inspired by the NIP plan (New Image of Parish), oriented toward the peripheries.
Father Prevost entrusted many women with the task of developing work plans and coordinating catechesis in different areas.
Yolanda Díaz, a lay member of the Santa Ángela community in Chiclayo, recalls her experience when Father Prevost invited her to participate in the pastoral reform process begun in 2014.
The effort continued after he became bishop, she says: “I felt a first change: we were considered protagonists within the Church, able to lead processes that previously belonged to priests or religious sisters.”
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