Pope Leo XIV landed in Peru on Wednesday, 11 November 2026, on the last leg of his South American tour, after Uruguay and Argentina. He was born in Chicago as Robert Francis Prevost, but The Washington Post writes that Peru is his second home: he became a Peruvian citizen in 2015, after years as a missionary and a bishop.

The plane landed at Callao Air Base, on the edge of Lima. President Keiko Fujimori and Foreign Minister Carlos Espá met him. Two children gave him flowers, and he hugged them. A choir, Sinfonía por el Perú, made up of 27 children, sang at the arrival. Leo stopped to bless people with disabilities and several babies, Vatican News reported.

The Washington Post says the pope looked emotional and that some 3 million people, a record for his papacy, lined the convoy’s route for miles into the city. On Avenida Brasil he switched to the popemobile to greet the crowds on the way to the Presidential Palace for the official welcome.

That evening, at the Gran Teatro Nacional, he told officials and diplomats that the return “holds a very special meaning.” The bond, he said, began before he was bishop of Chiclayo: for years he shared people’s lives, listened to their worries and learned from their faith. He remembered hosts who opened their homes and offered “some good ceviche,” until he felt “like one of their own.” The 2015 citizenship, he said, formally recognized a tie Peruvians had been weaving for a long time.

“Today I understand how much of this land remains with me, and how much of my own story also belongs to all of you,” he said. He was bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023. The visit lasts six days. On Friday he celebrates Mass on the Pampas de Pimentel, near Chiclayo. On Thursday he meets the bishops and leads midday prayer in Lima’s cathedral. In Cusco he prays the Angelus at Saqsaywaman, and in Pucallpa he meets missionaries and representatives of Amazonian peoples.

On Monday, 16 November, he celebrates Mass at Las Palmas Air Base and leaves for Rome. In the speech he said distance “does not necessarily diminish one’s love for one’s homeland” and can make that love clearer. He recalled St. Rose of Lima, the first saint of Latin America.

He asked leaders to protect “everyday peace”: going to work without fear, caring for children, coming home with a quiet mind. The Church, he added, knows the suffering caused by violence and wants to stay close to those who endure it, alongside those who defend life and dignity through law and justice.

Image: Wikimedia Commons — Pope Leo XIV (Edgar Beltrán / The Pillar, CC BY-SA 4.0). The portrait is not from the Lima arrival.

Sources consulted: Mammoth crowds greet Pope Leo on his return to Peru — The Washington Post; Pope Leo arrives in Peru for the final leg of his journey — Vatican News; “Distance does not necessarily diminish love for one’s homeland” — Vatican News.