Leo XIV in Lima’s Plaza de Armas: “Let us value women! Let us protect and respect girls!”

“Let us value women! Let us protect and respect girls!” That was the strongest appeal Leo XIV made on Thursday afternoon, 12 November (Rome time), in Plaza de Armas, Lima’s Plaza Mayor in front of the Cathedral, at the meeting on the challenges and hopes for the future of the Peruvian people. According to the Holy See Press Office bulletin, the Pope arrived in the square at 11:24 a.m. local time (5:24 p.m. in Rome), accompanied by the Archbishop of Lima, Cardinal Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio; local authorities put the crowd at about 40,000 people. The official text of the speech, published by the Holy See Press Office in the original Spanish with an Italian translation, is consistent with the quotations below, taken from Vatican News reports in English or translated by us; an official English translation has not yet been released.

Four questions for the Pope. After the cardinal’s welcome, four testimonies, interspersed with an artistic performance, put four questions to the Pope: families under pressure from economic hardship, workloads and the digital world; the richness of Peru’s cultures and the prejudice that still divides; violence against women; and the fear of entrepreneurs and workers facing extortion, robbery and murder by criminal gangs. Leo XIV answered that these challenges are part of one human reality and that “at the center of every social, economic and political organization must be the human person, created in the image and likeness of God, endowed with infinite dignity and called to live in relationship with others.”

“You make me feel at home.” Opening his address, the Pope thanked the crowd for welcoming him “with an open heart, as your brother and companion on the journey. You make me feel at home” (our translation). “During these days, I wish to walk among you as John the Baptist did, bearing witness to the Light that enlightens everyone: Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” he said.

The family comes before the law. The Pope described the family as the first natural society, with rights of its own, which precedes any written law and which public institutions must recognize and protect rather than replace. He reaffirmed that God created the human being male and female, asked for the roles of men and women to be harmonized as both share responsibility for the future of society, and said that a child is the fruit of this communion, “not a product” (our translation). He offered “special thanks to these women — mothers, aunts and grandmothers — who pass on faith and sure hope to future generations with great courage through the example of their lives,” and told families wounded by poverty, emigration, addiction and violence: “God loves all families, especially those going through crises. To them I want to say: do not give in to difficulties.”

Disarming words. Peru, the Pope said, is “a very beautiful country precisely because of its cultural, linguistic, historical and regional plurality” (our translation), quoting a famous vals criollo, “cumbres nevadas, ríos, quebradas… ¡Es mi Perú!”; according to El Comercio, the square answered with the chant “¡El Papa es peruano!” He condemned words that offend or judge people because of their appearance, origins or social condition, even when disguised as jokes or slang: “Along with disarming our language by giving up hurtful words, we must also disarm our attitudes.”

Women and machismo. The most widely reported passage concerned women, whose contribution to every sphere of society and the Church he called indispensable. He deplored the persistence of a male-dominated mentality, seen in fathers’ absence from family life, in abuse and in violence against women, and drew attention to poor, Indigenous and Afro-Peruvian women, who may suffer double marginalization. Then the appeal, addressed not only to Catholics but to all people of goodwill: “Let us value women! Let us protect and respect girls!”

Work and the common good. To entrepreneurs and workers, the Pope said that “a business is a society of persons in which capital, management and labor must be ordered toward integral human development,” and asked public authorities to set a just legal framework and ensure a reasonable balance between work, rest and family life. Citing his encyclical Magnifica humanitas, he recalled that the common good is the shared achievement of a greater good, so that a society’s wealth does not benefit only a few. He closed by urging Peruvians to make their homes “schools of fraternity” and their businesses “communities of dignified work and social responsibility,” overcoming corruption, violence and individualism.

After the meeting. After the final blessing, at 12:23 p.m. local time the Pope drove to the Apostolic Nunciature, where he met privately with members of the Augustinian Order (bulletin B0907).

Also in the speech. According to the official text, the Pope warned that technology can risk “supplanting real coexistence” in families (our translation), recalled Saint Turibius of Mogrovejo, who spread the Gospel “without resorting to impositions” (our translation), and closed with the Our Father and the blessing: “God bless Peru!”

Updated at 8:50 p.m. Rome time with the official text of the speech released by the Holy See Press Office (Spanish original and Italian translation).

Sources: Holy See Press Office bulletin B0907, text of the speech, Vatican News (English), Vatican News (Spanish).

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