Get RNS’ thoughtful, essential religion reporting every morning. Sign up for free!
VATICAN CITY (RNS) – Pope Leo XIV will travel to the Latin American countries of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru Nov. 6-17, just over three weeks after undergoing lung surgery to treat cancer. The 71-year-old pontiff faces a grueling itinerary, delivering 36 speeches during his 12-day trip across three countries, with 14 flights, including two helicopter rides.
“I am happy to be able to return to the continent where I have lived so many moments of my life. May this journey be an opportunity to open our hearts to one another, strengthen our communion as brothers and sisters and renew our commitment to proclaiming the Gospel with joy!” said Leo, who spent two decades in Peru as a missionary and bishop, in a Vatican statement last week.
The journey will bring Leo back to the continent that shaped his ministry, with distinct challenges awaiting him in each country, from offering a vision of faith in secular Uruguay to engaging with Pope Francis’ legacy in Argentina and reconnecting with his own missionary roots in Peru, where he became a naturalized citizen.
South America accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s Catholics, according to Vatican statistics. But a 2026 Pew survey found Catholic identification has declined by nine percentage points over roughly a decade in six major Latin American countries, including Argentina and Peru. Uruguay was not part of the survey.
“Latin America is a priority for the Catholic Church,” said Luis Vildoso, head of projects for Latin America at the international pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need during an Oct. 16 online press conference with local bishops addressing the upcoming papal trip.
The small country of Uruguay, which Leo will visit Nov. 6-8, represents a peculiar enclave in Latin America with its marked secularism. Only one-third of Uruguayans identify as Catholic (33%), while 28% state they believe in God but do not belong to any religion, 11% belong to a religion other than Catholicism and 28% identify as agnostic or atheist, according to a poll by the Uruguayan consulting firm CIFRA.
Uruguay’s secular calendar celebrates Day of the Family instead of Christmas, and Holy Week coincides with the Week of Tourism, under a law written in 1919.
“We are a country where the pope’s visit can be an impulse of hope for all Uruguayans, believers, non-believers,” said Cardinal Daniel Fernando Sturla Berhouet, Archbishop of Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, during the online bishops’ event.
On Nov. 6, Leo will address political and diplomatic representatives of Uruguay in Montevideo, where he is expected to recognize the country’s active role at the United Nations and its defense of multilateralism and peaceful ways of resolving conflicts, said Guzmán Carriquiry, a former Uruguayan ambassador to the Holy See, speaking to journalists on Tuesday (Nov. 3).
Leo will also speak about “defending life from conception to natural death” in a country that has legalized abortion and euthanasia but “without seeking an open conflict with the Uruguayan government,” Carriquiry said. He added that he hoped the visit would stir in the hearts of Uruguayans “questions of meaning, hopefully questions of faith.”
In the evening the pope will attend an evening prayer with local bishops and clergy at the Metropolitan Cathedral.
The next day, Nov. 7, Leo will celebrate his first Mass of the papal trip in Paysandú, remembering Uruguay’s first bishop, Blessed Jacinto Vera. He will then return to Montevideo, where he will visit Casavalle, a neighborhood marked by poverty and high crime rates, where the church runs several social projects.
In the evening, the pope is expected to encourage the faith of the next generation as he visits the Catholic University of Uruguay before leading a prayer vigil for an estimated 60,000 faithful at the Centenario Stadium, where Pope John Paul II held a “Celebration of the Word” in front of a large crowd in 1988.
Sturla hopes the visit will kindle the flames of spirituality among the country’s youth. “There is a path of conversion of many young people that is surprising us,” he said. “We think the pope’s visit can drive this.”
The last day, Nov. 8, will mark one of the most symbolic moments of the visit to Uruguay, when Leo will aim to connect the country’s Catholic heritage with the history of its independence by celebrating Mass in the city of Florida at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Thirty-Three, the patroness of Uruguay. The shrine is named for 33 Uruguayan patriots who launched an 1825 uprising against Brazilian rule and, according to church tradition, prayed before the image of Mary.
Leo’s second leg will be in Argentina Nov. 8-11, marking the first time a pope has come to the country in 39 years. Francis never returned to his home country during his 12 years pontificate, and Leo is expected to trace the teachings of his predecessor as he visits places deeply connected to Francis’ life and ministry.
“The mystery surrounding the pope’s failed trip to his homeland must also be addressed, because it is a great enigma,” said Carriquiry, who was also former secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and a close friend of Pope Francis.
“Pope Leo is coming to fill that void,” Carriquiry added, stating that Argentinians are split between those who hope that Leo is a continuation of his predecessor and those who instead would want to see the Francis papacy forgotten.
Leo will also face a deeply polarized society, as political parties prepare for elections in 2027. The pope will meet Argentina’s current president, Javier Milei, when he lands in Buenos Aires on Nov. 8. Milei is a populist libertarian and ally of U.S. President Donald Trump. Milei has courted Silicon Valley investors, including Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir and a critic of Leo’s calls for international safeguards on artificial intelligence.
“Pope Leo would not hesitate to speak out forcefully on the major social justice issues in the country,” Carriquiry said, stating that it would be a direct challenge to the government. “But at the same time, it would be a grave mistake to judge the pope’s trip as simply another instance of contradiction with the Milei administration.”
The next day, Leo will visit the Catholic care home for people with disabilities in Claypole, drawing attention to a sector that has been strained by recent spending cuts under Milei’s “chainsaw” austerity measures.
That afternoon, the pope will have a chance to pay homage to his predecessor, Francis, in an interreligious meeting followed by a prayer with the local bishop at Bueno Aires’ Cathedral. Here, Leo is expected to address the implementation phase of synodality, Francis’ project for inclusion, listening and evangelization in the church.
Leo will celebrate Mass in Córdoba on Nov. 10, returning to the city that John Paul visited in 1987. Auxiliary Bishop Alejandro Nicolás Musolino of Córdoba, Argentina, said he hoped about 800,000 people would attend the event. That evening the pope will address Argentinian youth at the Monumento de los Españoles in Buenos Aires. Musolino said some young people are searching for meaning in spirituality after the pandemic and the rise of globalization and social networks. “Today that spiritual force generates a hope,” he said.
The pope will meet with inmates at the federal prison of Buenos Aires on Nov. 11, a moment that will be highly reminiscent of Francis, who left his entire personal savings to a juvenile detention center in Rome before his death. Leo will then celebrate Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, the national shrine of the country’s patroness and an important site of national popular devotion, drawing up to 2 million people for its youth pilgrimage each year.
For his final leg, Leo will return to Peru Nov. 11-16 for the longest and most personal visit of the journey. The pope first went to the country as an Augustinian missionary in 1985 and in 2014 he was tapped to lead the Diocese of Chiclayo. “The Holy Father is coming home. We don’t need to introduce the country to him. He knows everything that is happening in Peru, in the Peruvian Church,” said Edinson Edgardo Farfán Córdova, who succeeded Leo as Bishop of Chiclayo.
After meeting with local authorities on his first day, Leo will have an opportunity to greet Peruvian clergy at the Cathedral of St. John in Lima, followed by a discussion on “the hopes and challenges for the future of the Peruvian people” on Nov. 12. That evening, he will also have a prayer vigil with young people and university students in the country.
The pope will travel to Chiclayo Nov. 13, where he will celebrate Mass at the “Pampas de Pimentel,” a desert plain where Farfán said they expect as many as 1.5 million people to gather. He’ll then pray during a private visit at the San Óscar A. Romero chapel, which he personally helped rebuild by securing financing from U.S. benefactors. During an afternoon meeting with clergy at the Our Lady of Peace sanctuary, Farfán said he expects the pope to address synodality and the “co-responsibility” of different ministries.
After crowning an image of Mary at the Cathedral of St. Mary where he was ordained bishop, Leo will take a helicopter to Santa Cruz de Succhabamba to celebrate Mass. “It will remind him of his missionary years,” Farfán said, “because it’s really very difficult to get to these areas, but he has always been there to evangelize.”
That evening, the pope will also lead a prayer at the sanctuary of St. Toribio de Mogrovejo, the patron saint of Latin American bishops and a champion of Indigenous rights, on the 300 year anniversary of his canonization.
On Nov. 15, Leo will fly to Cusco in the Peruvian Andes, landing at one of the highest altitude airports in the world at nearly 11,000 feet. Cusco was the capital of the Inca empire before being conquered by Spanish forces in the 1500s and remains a place of blended Catholic and Incan religiosity. Before offering the Angelus Prayer in the city’s main square, Leo will meet with representatives of lay Catholic groups who organize the region’s religious festivals and events. The meeting will take place at Saqsaywaman, the monumental Inca ceremonial complex overlooking the former imperial capital.
In the afternoon, Leo will fly to Pucallpa to meet with missionaries and representatives from the Amazonian region and to celebrate Mass, where he will probably address environmental and evangelization issues.
On his final day, Nov. 16, the pope will meet with the elderly in the port city of Callao before celebrating a final Mass at Las Palmas Air Base in Lima. He departs that day and arrives in Rome the day after.