section_path: Early career (1977–1998)/Missionary work in Peru
section_name: Missionary work in Peru
paragraph_text: Missionary work in Peru
  
  Prevost joined the Augustinian mission in Peru in 1985, serving as chancellor of the Territorial Prelature of Chulucanas (1985–1986). In 1987, after defending his doctoral thesis, he was vocation director and missions director of the Augustinian Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel in Olympia Fields, Illinois, and worked with the faculty of the Augustinian Novitiate in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, before returning to Peru in 1988. During his time in Peru, Prevost met and appreciated the Dominican priest and theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, a founder of liberation theology. He also learned and mastered the Spanish language during this period.
  
  Prevost spent a decade heading the Augustinian seminary in Trujillo, teaching canon law in the diocesan seminary, serving as prefect of studies, acting as a judge in the regional ecclesiastical court, and working in parish ministry on the city's outskirts. He proved successful in the Augustinians' efforts to recruit Peruvians for the priesthood and leadership positions in the order. He organized support for Venezuelan refugees to Peru despite discrimination against the Venezuelans.
  
  During the Fujimorato era, Prevost criticized the actions of then-President Alberto Fujimori, placing special emphasis on the victims of the Peruvian Army, especially the Colina Group, during the period of terrorism in Peru, as well as on political corruption. In 2017, he criticized President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski 's decision to pardon Fujimori, and called upon Fujimori "to personally apologize for some of the great injustices that were committed". His years in Peru gave him personal knowledge of political violence and inequality; at times, as a missionary, he traveled by horse on difficult roads to reach the isolated communities in the valleys of Lambayeque. He also stood out as a defender of human rights of the population of the Norte Chico region against the violence of the Marxist–Leninist–Maoist guerrilla organization Shining Path.