Pope Leo XIV to visit Peru, Argentina and Uruguay in November

What the report says

Pope Leo XIV is set to make his first trip to Latin America as head of the Catholic Church in November, with visits planned to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, according to the Vatican as reported by Al Jazeera. The tour is scheduled for November 6 to 17 and will take him to Montevideo, Paysandú and Florida in Uruguay; Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Luján in Argentina; and Lima, Chiclayo, Cusco and Pucallpa in Peru.

The Peru stop stands out because Leo spent much of his ministry there. Al Jazeera reported that he first arrived in Peru in 1985 as a missionary, later served as bishop of the Diocese of Chiclayo, and became a Peruvian citizen in 2015. His return to Chiclayo is expected to be especially meaningful, given the local ties he built over decades of work in the country.

The visit also carries broader symbolic weight for South America. It will be the first papal trip to Argentina and Uruguay in nearly 40 years, and the first visit by a pope to Argentina since John Paul II in 1987. The article noted that Pope Francis, who was from Argentina, never returned there during his papacy.

More generally, the trip comes as the Catholic Church seeks to maintain its influence in Latin America, where the region still has the world’s largest Catholic population but where identification with Catholicism has declined in recent decades, according to polling cited by Al Jazeera.