The Pope made the appointment on 12 December. The see has been vacant since April 2024, when Archbishop José Antonio Eguren resigned. Maza Huamán was acting as vicar general of the archdiocese and has long experience as a seminary educator.
Eguren led the diocese for 18 years. He was a member of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV) and made Piura one of the sodality’s strongholds in the country.
Founded by Luis Fernando Figari in 1971, the SCV grew in Lima and other parts of Peru as an elite association of traditionalist Catholics and quickly became the owner of massive assets.
Despite public revelations of sexual and spiritual abuse within its ranks over two decades, the SCV escaped legal and canonical action through powerful connections in politics, the media and the hierarchy.
In Piura, the SCV and Eguren were involved in land disputes with indigenous farmers. Communities in the localities of Castilla and San Juan Bautista de Catacaos suffered years of legal disputes, accusing Eguren of stealing their land in order to form vast commercial farms.
In 2015, the Vatican launched an initial investigation of the SCV. In 2018, Figari was removed to Rome and forbidden to contact the sodality, as he faced numerous charges in Peru of abuse and diversion of funds.
A new inquiry began in July of 2023, led by the Archbishop of Malta Charles Scicluna, adjunct secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Fr Jordi Bertomeu.
They interviewed numerous victims of the SCV’s misconduct, including journalists Paola Ugaz and Pedro Salinas whom Eguren sued for defamation after they wrote articles and books about the sodality. He later dropped the claim.
Eguren presented his resignation to Pope Francis in April last year at the age of 68, seven years before the mandatory retirement age, and left Piura without being sent to any other diocese.
A few days later, Pope Francis appeared in a video addressed to the Catacaos farmers, voicing solidarity and encouraging them to keep defending their lands.
One year later, the Vatican dissolved the SCV based on the findings of Scicluna and Bertomeu.
According to theologian Veronique Lecaros, who heads the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru’s Theology programme, Eguren kept distance from the people, while Maza Huamán is widely seen as a “leader close to the community.”
The archdiocese is an important center for Opus Dei, which controls the University of Piura and private schools in the region.
“Of course, that is something that will not change with the new archbishop,” she told The Tablet. However, she expected the personal – and pastoral – approach of Maza Huamán to take the archdiocese to another direction, very different from that of the SCV and aligning it with Pope Leo’s pastoral priorities.
“He’s from Piura, something that pleases the local community. He doesn’t come from the elite and used to be the vicar of a parish in a poor region,” she said.