Today, Leo XIV appointed Auxiliary Bishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera O.S.A., 52, of Cuzco, Peru, as the Coadjutor Archbishop of the same Archdiocese. He will thus be the successor to Archbishop Richard Daniel Alarcón Urrutia, 74.
Just two weeks ago, the new Archbishop offered to the idol Pachamama.
Leo XIV Personally Formed Estrada
Born in Cotabambas in 1973, Monsignor Estrada joined the Augustinians and was ordained a priest in 2005. Pope Francis appointed Estrada auxiliary bishop of Cuzco in January 2021.
In May 2025, Bishop Estrada told VaticanNews.va, that Leo XIV was already his professor, his spiritual director within the Augustinians, and then his Prior General. Finally they served together within the Peruvian episcopate.
Bishop Prevost was a concelebrant at the priestly ordination of Estrada and his episcopal co-consecrator.
Estrada Participated in Pachamama Ritual
On August 13-14, 2026, Bishop Estrada helped inaugurate a conference in Cuzco.
The opening ceremony included a Pachamama veneration ritual. Bishop Estrada carried coca leaves to a bowl of fire as an offering to the "Pachamama" (Mother Earth), placing it on a mandala used in that ritual.
The ceremony began with explicit references to August as the month of “Mother Earth,” followed by coca leaves, guided breathing, thanksgiving to the earth and the instruction to give the leaves three breaths before depositing them.
Amazon as a “Theological Place”
In a 2023 interview with VaticanNews.va, Estrada argued that the Andean and Amazonian peoples have much to teach the Church—not only through their cultures and ways of life, but through their ways “of believing.” And, “I desire an inculturated Church.”
For years, Bishop Estrada has been deeply involved in indigenous pastoral theology, inculturation, indigenous “cosmovision,” new indigenous ministries.
At the August 2025 Indigenous Pastoral Assembly in Ecuador, he called it urgent to "promote and develop the Amazonian Rite and Maya Rite".
In March 2026, he described the Amazon as a “theological place” where the Church can discover new ways of living the Gospel.
On 9 June 2026, opening CELAM's Caribbean regional meeting, Estrada recalled a need to listen to “the cry of the impoverished and of Mother Earth.”
Female Deacons
In 2023, as CELAM secretary general, Estrada presented a major CELAM study on the participation of women in the Latin American and Caribbean Church, which explicitly included the female diaconate among its proposals.
In his introduction, Estrada highlighted calls for “the creation of new ministries in which [women] can better serve the Church.”
At the study’s presentation, he praised its findings, saying they had “anticipated the topics addressed during the first session of the Synod in October 2023.”
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