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CHICLAYO, Peru (RNS) — When the five sixth graders were called into the Rev. Bernardino Gil’s office on Tuesday (Nov. 3), they were ready. Among the group toting microphones, a cardboard Sony camera and homemade press vests, one young reporter asked the priest in Spanish, “What can we learn from the life and mission of Pope Leo XIV?”

Anita Chumacero’s class at Jesús de Nazaret (Jesus of Nazareth) school is preparing to welcome their former bishop back to Chiclayo by interviewing several leaders in the town of Pimentel, including their mayor and their pastor, Gil, who was Leo’s former vicar general.

Though signs welcoming Leo are still sparse in Lima, Peru’s capital, Leo’s former coastal diocese of Chiclayo is already buzzing with excitement for the pope’s arrival.…