Pope Leo heads for Peru homecoming after drawing two million at final Argentina event

• Pope Leo left Argentina after a huge visit, with six million people over three days and two million at a final Mass at Our Lady of Lujan.
• He urged care for “the poor and the hungry, migrants, the sick and prisoners,” and hugged inmates at a penitentiary, criticising harsh treatment.
• Leo now heads to Peru for an emotional homecoming, but his past criticism of the Fujimori family could test ties with President Keiko Fujimori.

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT, Argentina - Pope Leo departed on Nov 11 for Peru and an emotional homecoming after wrapping up a visit to Argentina that drew a record six million people over three days.

Leo, on a three-nation 12-day South America tour, ended his Argentina visit with an outdoor Mass at the shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, Argentina’s most important Catholic devotional site, where throngs of pilgrims had gathered for days in advance for a chance to see him.

The Mass drew a two million-strong crowd that stretched for miles outside the shrine, located about an hour west of Buenos Aires.

People pressed against security barriers, chanting “Leo, Leo, Leo” and waved white-and-yellow Vatican flags as he arrived in an open-air popemobile.

Some in the crowd had walked as far as 10km to arrive, with many streets closed as a security measure.

In his sermon, Leo asked God to protect Argentina and urged Argentines to have a place for everyone in their society, “especially those who are most in need: the poor and the hungry, migrants, the sick and prisoners.”

The pope on Nov 11 also visited one of Argentina’s largest penitentiaries, where he hugged several inmates and urged guards to treat detainees humanely.

During his three-day visit to Argentina, Leo has urged consideration for the disadvantaged at a time when President Javier Milei’s austerity agenda has been criticised by the Church for affecting the poor.

Milei’s eyes welled with tears as he bid farewell to Leo on the tarmac, a surprising display of emotion from a president known for piling ​insults on Leo’s predecessor, Francis, an Argentine who never returned home after becoming pope.

Crowds for Leo’s visit to Argentina have been big. A Mass in Buenos Aires on Nov 9 was the largest single event yet of his 18-month papacy, drawing 2.5 million people.

Leo began the South American trip - the most intense overseas tour by a pope in decades - less than a month after lung cancer surgery and has appeared in good form, giving long speeches in a firm, clear voice.

Personal visit

Pope Leo, who has US and Peruvian citizenship, will next embark on a more personal leg of the trip, returning to the place he served as a missionary for about 20 years before becoming pope in 2025.

The visit is expected to include emotional scenes as the pope sees old friends and spends three days in the northern city of Chiclayo, where he was bishop from 2015 to 2023.

Leo is due to land at Peru’s Callao Air Base at 5.30pm (6.30am on Nov 12 in Singapore). After a brief welcome ceremony, he will head to the presidential palace to address President Keiko Fujimori, who took over the presidency this year after an election marred by fraud accusations and vote-counting delays.

The visit will test how directly Leo is willing to wade into the politics of his adopted nation.

Fujimori is the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, who was in office from 1990 to 2000 and died in 2024. Her victory marked the return of one of Peru’s most influential and polarising political dynasties. Her father spent many years in jail after leaving the presidency, convicted of human rights abuses.

Fujimori was pardoned in 2017, a decision that Leo, then known as Bishop Robert Prevost, criticised, saying that the former president should personally seek forgiveness from victims if Peru was to achieve genuine reconciliation.

Keiko Fujimori leaned heavily on her father’s political legacy during her presidential campaign.

Peru has prepared for the homecoming with fervour: a 14m statue depicting Leo with outstretched arms towers over a seaside park in Callao, merchants in Lima are selling pope-themed shirts and souvenirs, and inmates at the country’s largest women’s prison have stitched velvet dolls bearing his likeness.

Martin Cassinelli, an analyst at the Atlantic Council, said Leo’s Peruvian roots give him an unusual ability to speak about the country’s political past.

“There’s no other country where the pope is as attuned to the domestic politics,” Cassinelli said. “If there’s anything that could potentially be at odds with the current Fujimori government, it would be a reflection on the past.”

Relations between the late Fujimori’s government and sectors of the Catholic Church were frequently tense, particularly over human rights during the state’s fight against the Maoist Shining Path insurgency. Church figures also opposed the 1995 amnesty for members of the security forces accused of rights abuses. REUTERS