By Marco Aquino
CHICLAYO, Peru Nov 13 (Reuters) - As Pope Leo returns on Friday to Chiclayo, Peru, where he once served as bishop, residents of a nearby town hope he will revive a cause he once championed — Vatican recognition of a Eucharistic miracle they believe occurred nearly four centuries ago.
Leo is touring Peru after stops in Argentina and Uruguay on his first South American tour since becoming pope in 2025.
In Eten, a northern town near the Pacific Ocean, residents say the child Jesus appeared
twice in 1649 in a consecrated host, the wafer Catholics believe becomes the body of Christ. The host is part of the Eucharist, the Catholic rite commemorating the Last Supper.
"This miracle, which occurred 377 years ago, is waiting for the shepherd at some point during his visit to say Eten is the Eucharistic city where the only Eucharistic miracle in Peru occurred," Jesús León, coordinator of a Catholic group in Eten, said of Leo.
Long before he became pope, Robert Prevost, as Leo was known, put down deep roots in Peru. The Chicago-born missionary arrived in the country in 1985, became a Peruvian citizen in 2015, and served as bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 until 2023.
PREVOST 'FOUGHT HARD' FOR MIRACLE RECOGNITION
In Chiclayo, Prevost took up the cause of Eten's centuries-old story himself. In 2019, as bishop, he presented Pope Francis with a proposal for the Vatican to recognize the "Eucharistic miracle," backed by historical records and thousands of testimonies of faith, according to the Catholic Church in Chiclayo.
"Our supreme pontiff fought very hard," León said.
Such recognition is rare and requires a lengthy Church investigation. Church recognition matters to communities because it signals the Vatican considers an event worthy of public devotion. Recognized sites can also draw pilgrims and visitors, bringing economic benefits.
In May last year, after 12 years of inquiries, the Vatican recognized a Eucharistic miracle said to have occurred at a church in India in 2013.
As bishop, Prevost sometimes celebrated Masses honoring the purported Eten apparition, witnesses said, and secured more than 11 hectares (27 acres) for the Diocese of Chiclayo at the site of the church where residents say the miracle occurred. The diocese planned to build Peru's first Eucharistic sanctuary.
The site itself is contested. A dissident group has built a small chapel on parts of the old church's remains and receives visitors drawn by Eten's miracle story. The Divine Child of Miracles chapel is operated by a local committee that says the chapel has been there for decades. The dissident group and the diocese have clashed over control of the land, authority to hold religious services there, and custody of an image the dissident group links to the purported miracle.
Much of the church has vanished beneath the earth. Archaeologist Jorge Alberto Centurión, who excavated the site in 2009 and 2010, said his team uncovered remnants of its entrance and evidence of burials inside.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino in Chiclayo; writing by Cassandra Garrison. Editing by Lucinda Elliott and Rod Nickel)
