Three weeks after lung cancer surgery, Pope Leo XIV will today embark on the longest and farthest trip of his pontificate: a 12-day, three-nation tour of Latin America that carries more personal and historic weight than any of his voyages to date. Source: Crux.
The United States-born Pope Leo is returning home to Peru, where the former Robert Prevost lived for two decades as a missionary priest and learned to be the pastor he is today.
The Pope holds Peruvian citizenship and is so attached to Peru’s people he gave them a shoutout in Spanish from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on the night of his election.
Leo is also going to Argentina, the home of his predecessor, Pope Francis, to whom Leo owes his pontificate. It will be a homecoming of sorts there, too, since Francis never returned to Argentina after his 2013 election, leaving a complicated legacy that Leo will now have to navigate.
Leo starts his trip today in Uruguay, the least Catholic, most secular country in Latin America, where not even the big Catholic feast days get their due: Christmas in Uruguay is officially “Family Day” and Holy Week is “Tourism Week”.
Leo is nevertheless expected to draw huge crowds throughout his trip and will likely raise issues of concern to his still-young pontificate: Economic injustice, the plight of Indigenous peoples and the Amazon, and the Church’s dreadful legacy of clergy sexual abuse.
But many eyes will be on Leo himself for having confirmed this gruelling trip so soon after surgery on October 13 to remove a cancerous tumour from his lung.
While popes always travel with ample medical care, the Vatican said no special or additional provisions were planned for Pope Leo, including when the 71-year-old travels to Cusco, Peru, at an altitude of 3410 metres.
No leg of the trip is more anticipated than the final stop in Peru, with Pope Leo’s arrival in Lima, and after that Chiclayo, his beloved former diocese that he headed from 2015-2023, when Francis summoned him to Rome.
“He is so excited. He personally confirmed this trip with no changes,” said Maria Montserrat Alvarado, the Vatican’s new communications chief.
Ms Alvarado said Peru “opened his eyes” to the diverse needs of the Church and how the Church encounters its flock.
“This is a place that gave him his ministry and inspired who he is as a pastor,” she said.
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A still-recovering pope will head home to Latin America and his beloved Peru for a 12-day trip (By Nicole Winfield, AP via Crux)
