Pope Leo XIV sets off on 12-day South America tour weeks after lung cancer surgery

Departure and health clearance

Pope Leo XIV is due to leave Rome's Fiumicino airport at 7:00 on Friday, 6 November, for a 12-day journey through Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. The trip begins less than a month after an operation on 13 October, in which part of his right lung containing a malignant tumour was removed. Doctors say he is now cancer-free and have cleared him to travel, and the Vatican says the programme will stay unchanged. Surgeon Stefano Margaritora said earlier that the journey was long but that there were no clinical reasons it could not go ahead. Doubts had been raised about whether the 71-year-old could make the trip at all.

“There are no particular precautions after the surgery. The 14 days of necessary recovery have passed, the doctors are confident and medical help is available should something happen.”

The itinerary across three countries

The flight to Montevideo takes about 13.5 hours, and Rai reports an arrival planned for 16:30 local time, or 20:30 in Italy. After a welcome ceremony, the pope is set to meet civil authorities at Plaza Independencia at 17:45 local time, then visit President Yamandú Orsi, and close the day with vespers at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral at 19:10 local time. Uruguay's security plan involves about 5,000 police officers and 1,000 soldiers, and he will be driven along Montevideo's waterfront in a specially built popemobile. On 9 November he is due at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in Buenos Aires, which holds liturgical vestments used by Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he was archbishop of the capital. Spiegel counts 36 speeches across more than 50 events, while NOS puts the number of speeches at nearly 40 and the number of flights at twelve, where RTVE counts 14 flights covering 31,000 kilometres.

Peru and the return to Chiclayo

Peru is the emotional centre of the trip, since Leo spent more than 20 years there as a missionary and bishop, and he has held Peruvian citizenship since. He is expected in Chiclayo on Friday, 13 November, where he celebrates a large Mass at Pampas de Pimentel. Spiegel adds that the programme includes an excursion to around 3,700 metres in the Peruvian Andes. Lastampa also reports a day in the Peruvian Amazon with missionaries and indigenous communities. Cardinal Pietro Parolin described the visit in these terms:

“In Latin America Robert Francis Prevost returns to places that have shaped his life, especially in Peru.”

Politics and religion in the region

Spiegel notes that Argentina and Peru are led by right-populist heads of state, Javier Milei and Keiko Fujimori, whose late father was himself once president. According to NOS, Milei's relationship with Pope Francis was rocky at first before warming, and the two still differ sharply on the regulation of AI. Francis was born in Argentina, and Spiegel reports that he never returned there as pope. NOS adds that Uruguay is the most secular country in South America, with about a third of its population Catholic, and that conservative evangelical currents are growing in Brazil, Colombia, Argentina and Peru. In 2015, Francis acknowledged the church's role in colonial conquest and asked forgiveness for wrongs committed against Indigenous peoples in God's name.

Return to Rome

The trip ends with a return to Rome, which Spiegel expects on 17 November. Across 12 days, the pope will cover about 31,000 kilometres according to RTVE, a figure the sources give as a total for the whole journey.