It is with great joy that the Neocatechumenal Way has received the news of the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as Successor of Peter. His first words have filled us with joy, placing at the center the Risen Christ, who offers us his peace, and evangelization that springs from a missionary heart.

A particular echo in the hearts of all the brothers and sisters of the Way—and particularly in mine—has been that the election took place on the day of the Supplication to Our Lady of Pompeii, because Our Lady of Pompeii has had a special meaning and presence in the history of the Neocatechumenal Way. In 1968, when the Servant of God Carmen Hernández and I arrived in Rome, we were taken by Don Dino Torreggiani, founder of the “Servants of the Church,” to place at the feet of Our Lady of Pompeii the mission that had begun among the shanties of Palomera Altas, on the outskirts of Madrid. Since then, there have been several events that have significantly accompanied the Way on May 8.

During his episcopal ministry in Peru, he also had the opportunity to meet the team responsible for the Way and to accompany them, as well as to preside over a vocational meeting where he encouraged young people to become missionaries of Christ.

The name he has taken as Successor of Peter, Pope Leo XIV, reminds us that his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, had to govern the Church in truly difficult times, in defense of Christian identity.

The Way is above all a charism that prioritizes mission through Christian Initiation offered to dioceses and parishes. Concrete signs of this are the thousands of families on mission in the most de-Christianized places, the Redemptoris Mater seminaries, where priests are formed for the New Evangelization and all family and youth ministry. We are happy to be able to continue, with His Holiness, putting all these gifts of the Lord at the service of the Church for the good of humanity, and especially of those “many baptized who end up living… in a de facto atheism,” as Pope Leo XIV recalled in his first homily in the Sistine Chapel.

We assure the Holy Father of our prayers and those of all our brothers so that his ministry may bear all the fruit that people today need.

Kiko Argüello

May 8th, Virgin of Pompeii