(File Photo: Source for Photo: Pope Leo XIV holds his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square at The Vatican, Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Three weeks after lung cancer surgery, Pope Leo XIV is embarking on the longest and farthest trip of his pontificate: a 12-day, three-nation tour of Latin America that carries more personal and historic weight than any of his voyages to date.
The U.S.-born Leo is returning home to Peru, where the former Robert Prevost lived for two decades as a missionary priest and learned to be the pastor he is today. Leo holds Peruvian citizenship and is so attached to Peru’s people he gave them a shoutout in Spanish from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on the night of his election.
Leo is also going to Argentina, the home of his predecessor, Pope Francis, to whom Leo owes his pontificate. It will be a homecoming of sorts there, too, since Francis never returned to Argentina after his 2013 election, leaving a complicated legacy that Leo will now have to navigate.
Leo starts his trip Friday in Uruguay, the least Catholic, most secular country in all of Latin America, where not even the big Catholic feast days get their due: Christmas in Uruguay is officially “Family Day” and Holy Week is “Tourism Week.”
Leo is nevertheless expected to draw huge crowds throughout his trip and will likely raise issues of concern to his still-young pontificate: economic injustice, the plight of Indigenous peoples and the Amazon, and the church’s dreadful legacy of clergy sexual abuse.
But many eyes will be on Leo himself for having confirmed this grueling trip at all so soon after surgery Oct. 13 to remove a cancerous tumor from his lung.
When doctors announced that Leo required no further treatment, they also said there was no reason why he couldn’t make the Nov. 6-17 trip. It includes a dozen flights and two helicopter rides covering 31,000 kilometers (19,000 miles), the longest of Leo’s pontificate.
While popes always travel with ample medical care, the Vatican said no special or additional provisions are planned for Leo, including when the 71-year-old travels to Cusco, Peru, at an altitude of 3,400 meters (11,200 feet).
“We’re not talking of a permanent condition,” said Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni. “We’re talking about something that you heal from, because it is surgery.”
