Pope Leo XIV Returns to Peru for 4-City Visit as 20 Years There Shaped His Papacy
Updated
Updated · CNN · Nov 11
Pope Leo XIV Returns to Peru for 4-City Visit as 20 Years There Shaped His Papacy
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Nov 11
Summary
Wednesday’s trip takes Pope Leo XIV to Lima, Cusco, Chiclayo and other cities in a visit widely cast in Peru as a homecoming for a pontiff who also holds Peruvian citizenship.
Nearly two decades in Peru helped define Robert Prevost’s public image there: clergy and aid workers recall him traveling 700 kilometers during Covid lockdowns, distributing food and offering pastoral support.
In Chiclayo, he also helped raise more than $380,000 for two oxygen plants during a pandemic that killed over 219,000 people in Peru.
That reputation was reinforced in later crises, from 2017 flooding and Cyclone Yaku in 2023—when more than 10,000 people were affected—to the arrival of more than 20,000 Venezuelan migrants through Chiclayo.
Supporters say his work with the poor, migrants and human-rights initiatives made him a Latin America-rooted figure, helping build the broad backing that carried him to the papacy in 2025.