HICLAYO, Peru (OSV News) — Twenty days into his papacy, Pope Leo XIV’s appointment style remains largely unknown — but his years leading the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, may offer clues. There, he prioritized lay leadership, promoted synodality and worked across ecclesial factions.

César Piscoya arrived in the Diocese of Chiclayo in 2017 at the invitation of the then-Bishop Robert Francis Prevost — now Pope Leo — to serve as executive secretary of the social vicariate. But his appointment to a position in church government drew grumblings from priests in the northern Peruvian diocese, which Piscoya and other church observers describe as having had a culture of clericalism.

“I encountered the greatest resistance from the clergy because they found it very difficult to understand that a laype

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