“My friend, the Pope.” Armando Jesús Lovera is one of the very few people who can say this: the story of a 30-year friendship that is remarkably ordinary and largely unknown.

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Who really knows Leo XIV?

Apart from his brothers and his trusted secretary, Fr. Edgard Iván Rimaycuna, there is one person almost no one has ever heard of.

His name is Armando Jesús Lovera, and for more than thirty years he spent time with Robert Francis Prevost, the future Pope, almost every day. They watched World Cup matches together and traveled together. A lot.

Today, Lovera is one of the few people in the world who can say: “My friend Bob, the Pope.”

 

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How Bob and Armando Met

The two first met in 1991 in Bojacá, Colombia.

Lovera had arrived from Peru to discern his vocation among the Augustinians.

At first, Prevost, an American canon lawyer, struck him as a rather rigid person: “I imagined a distant and stern man, more interested in rules than in people’s lives,” he recently recalled.

But that first impression soon disappeared: the future Pope told him about Peruvian communities affected by poverty and violence, and about the Augustinians’ efforts to support the families hit hardest. “His experiences awakened in me the desire to be there too,” Lovera said.

 

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The Crisis and Marriage

Prevost also became his spiritual director for seven years.

Then came the crisis: Lovera realized that religious life was not his path. It was not a question of faith; he simply realized that community life was difficult for him.

Many of his seminary teachers tried to persuade him otherwise, but Robert Prevost did not: “He listened to me without judging me, nor did he try to pressure me into making a decision,” the man recalls. “He respected my freedom.”

For Lovera, this gentleness toward him remains one of the greatest qualities of his closest friend. Rather than trying to shape people according to his own ideas, he explains, Prevost helped his fellow religious find their own path before God.

Their friendship continued even after their paths diverged, through phone calls, messages, conversations about theology and politics, comments on everyday life, and, above all, football: Prevost supported Real Madrid, while Lovera supported Barcelona.

The man later met his current wife, and “Bob has always been there for the most important moments of my life; he is part of my family’s story.”

 

 

The Day He Was Elected: “I Burst Into Tears”

Then, following Prevost’s election as the new Pope in 2025, things changed further. Not in essence, but in form. Apart from the fact that, as Lovera explains, “I never seriously thought he could be elected,” even though he had feared that possibility.

His fear was losing the day-to-day relationship with his best friend: being able to call him “Bob” and phone him at any time, without any particular reason or protocol.

Since that day, they have met only twice, but they remain in contact through messages and phone calls. “I remain close to him, but with respect, aware of the enormous responsibility he now has to shoulder.”

 

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The Messenger Message

During the interview, the Pope’s friend recounted a curious anecdote from the evening of May 8, 2025, the day Leo XIV was elected.

“I covered my face and started crying,” he recalls. He then sent him a message via Messenger: “Good night, Holy Father. We are praying for you. You can count on us.”

The reply came that same evening: “Thank you! A hug!”