St. Paul - The bishop sat quietly near the front row, folding his hands and tilting, and when indigenous leaders and church workers talked about the threat to the forests in northern Peru, part of the Amazon rainforest. It was 2016, a year after Laudato Si in the environment of Pope Francis.

When he spoke, the bishop did not preach, although he was in his city of Chiclayo, the host of a regional party. Instead, he reflected on what he had seen.

“It’s a very important encyclopedia,” he said. “It also represents a new thing that clearly expresses the church’s concern for all creation.”

That Bishop Robert Prevost is now Pope Leo Fourteen.

“He was always very enthusiastic and very close to the people,” Laura Vargas, secretary of the Peruvian Religious Council, recalled in a telephone interview with the Associated Press.

“When we brought it up, he had no problem saying it was – he was really interested in the work of social pastors.”

Since then, Prevost has deepened his ties to interfaith environmental networks such as the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative and Indigenous organizations such as Aidesep, which places forest conservation and rights at the center of church concerns.

Such qualifications give clergy and faithful clergy in the Amazon region, a vast area with 48 million residents and 6.7 million square kilometers (2.6 million square miles) in South America. They see Prevost, born in Chicago, who spent about twenty years in rural Peru, the pope who protects the area and fights climate change.

Many Catholics say they believe Prevost is one of the key reasons for his election as the bishop of Chiclayo, a city with 630,000 residents in northern Peru. They also said that the Pope's practical experience in impoverished areas far from major cities can also handle Amazon well for him and face challenges.

The Amazon is a key regulator of the climate because its dense forests absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that heats the planet when released into the atmosphere. But many parts of the Amazon are threatened by widespread illegal activity: farmers clean up trees to raise cattle, gold miners dig rivers, destroy local ecosystems and land to rob territory. Wildfires and droughts, which have been exacerbated by climate change, have also been attacked by the Amazon community in recent years.

Prevost chaired the Primitive Commission in Latin America and was very familiar with these issues, which helped him connect with colleagues in nine countries that Amazon touched. Many of them are one of the 105 bishops of the organization he publicly supports, the Pan American Church Network, a Catholic church network focusing on the Amazon region.

"I talked about Amazon and the environment a lot to him. He doesn't need to convince it about the importance," said Pedro Barreto, president of the network.

Brazilian friar Paulo Xavier agreed.

"Leo will follow Francis; we will continue to protect the environment," Xavier said. "The Holy Spirit acts on our behalf."

Xavier is headquartered in Manaus, a city with 2 million residents in Amazon. The city accepted the first cardinal appointed by Francis in 2022: Archbishop Leonardo Steiner, 74, is a Laudato SI enthusiast.

The Archdiocese of Steiner, Xavier and Manaus have invested in bringing encyclopedias into the hands of locals, even if it means jumping on small, mobile canoes through the brown waters of the Black River to reach isolated villages on a journey that can be continued on board.

In November 2024, the Vatican News reported that Prest asked for more action to address climate change and protect the environment during the workshops held in Rome. He cites efforts made by the Vatican, such as installing solar panels and electric vehicles.

On social media platform X, Prevost reposts about protecting the environment. A message he reposted on April 1, 2017 said that during President Donald Trump’s first term, people were concerned about carbon dioxide emissions.

Laura Vicuña, an indigenous woman of the people of Kariri and vice president of the Amazon Regional Church Conference, said in a letter posted on social media that she hopes the pope will become an ally in the fight against climate change. The conference was founded in 2020 by Francis to promote discussion between clergy and laymen.

Vicuña wrote: “From our dear Amazon, we beg you to be our ally to defend our holiest people; life, land and rights.”

Indigenous peoples like Kariri of Vicuña are often seen as the primary protectors of the Amazon, but for years they have been forced by criminals, deforestation and famine, as seen in Yanomami Lands in north Brazil in 2023.

Luis Ventura, the executive secretary of the Brazilian Indigenous Mission Committee, said he prayed that the new pope would look closer to the Amazon and pay special attention to the indigenous people. The committee was established in 1972 and rarely met with the Pope until 2013 Francis Rose. Its members hope that Leo will not change that.

"Leo will have a significant impact on Amazon," Ventura said. "His life is always with people in Peru, which allows us to think that the church will go deep into the territory."

Francis showed great interest in Amazon during its mission. Four years later, Laudato SI, he chaired the Amazon Religious Conference, which seeks “a new path for the church and holistic ecology.”

Rose Bertoldo, one of the secretary of the Archdiocese of Manas, said she was hopeful for the future of Leo, given that it would be based on Francis' interests. She added that this year's UN Climate Summit (New Pontiff) will have the opportunity to visit the world's most Catholic countries, at the UN Climate Summit (COP30) held in the Amazon city of Belem in November.

"We know that Amazon will be more urgency and challenge due to the global political background of division. We need him at the police station," Bertordo said.

Ireland's pastor Peter Hughes spent his entire life in Peru, and he had met Prevost shortly after arriving in Andean Nation in 1985. They soon became friends and they would meet each other when the bishop of Chiclayo was in the capital Lima.

“At that time,[Prevost]was concerned about Amazon’s tooth extraction and its impact on the poor,” Hughes said. “Now it’s a more complex world, and the urgency is obvious.”

____ Grattan report is from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Associated Press writer Isabella O'Malley contributed from Philadelphia.

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