Former missionary and dual citizen, Leo is the first Peruvian pope
Pope Leo XIV headed to Peru on Wednesday for the final leg of his three-nation South American tour, returning to the homeland he credits with teaching him how to be a pastor, where the former Robert Prevost spent more than two decades as a missionary priest and later bishop. Peruvians have prepared a nationwide welcome for a pontiff they call “Padre Robert.” As a dual citizen of the United States and Peru, Leo is the first pope from each country.
The preparations have taken tangible form. In the port of El Callao, a huge 46-foot (14-meter) statue of the pontiff was unveiled ahead of the visit. Baristas in Lima, the capital, were offering cappuccinos decorated with the pope’s image. Chiclayo, the northern city near the Pacific coast where Leo served as bishop, has gone further still: the pope appears there in colorful murals and on T-shirts, baseball hats, bobblehead dolls and even ice creams, and a life-size cardboard cutout of Leo now welcomes visitors to his former residence.
“My heart is so excited that it makes me want to cry with joy,” said Zuly Castillo, who served as Leo’s secretary when he was bishop of Chiclayo.
“Peru is the crown of the trip, the homecoming of the first Peruvian pope, no matter where he was born,” said Gustavo Morello, an associate professor of sociology at Boston College and the author of “Lived Religion in Latin America.” “This is a return to his origins without any doubt,” he said.
Leo will celebrate Mass across his old stomping grounds, including at the sanctuary of St. Turibius of Mogrovejo in Zaña, a city that is a hub of Afro-Peruvian culture and where the pope often visited to pray to the saint of his devotion. Because Leo knows his adopted country so well, his speeches will be closely watched — especially one he will deliver from the square in front of Lima’s cathedral “on the challenges and hopes for the future of the Peruvian people.”
The backdrop for that address is heavy. Peru, a nation of 34 million people, faces a daunting list of challenges, among them the looming arrival of El Niño, violent crime and income inequality. In 2025, 25.7% of the Peruvian population was living in monetary poverty.
“A small elite has GDP levels comparable to some U.S. states,” Morello said, adding that while the macroeconomy “is doing well, most Peruvians live in structural poverty and economic insecurity.” He said the visit “could help build stability in the political system,” and added, “Without any doubt, Peru is better now than 30 years ago, when Shining Path was still a threat.” The rebel movement terrorized Peru in the 1980s and 1990s, when Leo was a young Augustinian missionary.
Leo will honor Peru’s Indigenous peoples with a trip to Pucallpa, in the Amazon, to celebrate Mass. Illegal gold mining and the cultivation of coca leaves, the raw material used to produce cocaine, are affecting Peru’s Indigenous peoples. “The Amazon is a place where critical issues affecting development — such as the environmental crisis, the exclusion of Indigenous peoples, various forms of violence, and extreme poverty — all intersect,” said Rolando Pérez, a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.
In Cusco — the capital of the Inca empire, an important city of Spanish colonial rule and a cultural destination near the ruins at Machu Picchu — Leo will meet popular groups of faithful and representatives of local traditions, and celebrate Mass in the main square. There, in 1781, the Indigenous hero Túpac Amaru II was killed following the most significant rebellion against the Spanish during the colonial era.
Nature adds urgency to the visit. El Niño is expected to bring intense rainfall through March 2027 to cities along Peru’s Pacific coast, exacerbating an already tenuous situation by exposing deficiencies in sanitation infrastructure and increasing the risk of dengue and other potentially fatal illnesses, said Alonso Cárdenas, a political science professor at the Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University. “The ‘Mega Niño’ is only just beginning,” he said, noting that Chiclayo, Lima and other coastal cities lack a proper drainage system and that outdated sewage infrastructure leaves Peru at constant risk of flooding.
The political backdrop is unsettled. Conservative President Keiko Fujimori came to power in July on promises of restoring order to a nation plagued by extortion and homicide, which have nearly doubled, reaching 10.7 per 100,000 inhabitants — up from 5.8 five years ago. Cárdenas said Peruvians will welcome the pope at a time when many feel disappointed with authorities after a decade of political instability that has seen a revolving door of nine presidents since July 2016, with many battered by rising insecurity and the increasing cost of food. “There’s no sign of a reaction, no strategy,” he said of Fujimori’s government. Many hope for a message from Leo that will prompt a response from those in power.
“His return, now as pope, inspires great hope among a large segment of Peruvian society that still perceives and feels the abandonment of the state,” Pérez said. “Deeply etched in the public consciousness is the image of a shepherd who stood by the people, helping to bring into the public agenda their demands and their cry for justice.”
“There’s a profound sense of weariness regarding politics and corruption,” said Véronique Lecaros, head of the department of theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. The Catholic Church, in contrast, enjoys a level of credibility that surpasses any other Peruvian institution, she said.
Huge crowds are expected to turn out to welcome Leo home, even though Catholicism has fallen in Peru in recent years. According to the Pew Research Center, the Catholic population stood at 76% in 2013-2014 but now sits at around 67% — in line with a global trend of growth in the religiously unaffiliated, the “nones” who identify as atheists, agnostics, spiritual but not religious, or nothing in particular. Lecaros said the shift does not mean Peruvians have lost their faith, and most still consider themselves to be religious.
“They’ll listen to the pope, and some inspired by his example, will renew their interest in the church,” she said. “In the end though, it will depend on how Catholic lay and clerical leaders choose to behave.”