Pope Leo sets packed agenda for November trip to Peru, Argentina, Uruguay

By Joshua McElwee

VATICAN CITY, Sept 21 (Reuters) – Pope Leo will undertake one of the most intense foreign trips by a Catholic leader in decades in November, leading some 50 events during an 11-day tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, the Vatican said on Monday.

Leo will travel some 31,000 km (19,260 miles) over the 10-city tour and give 36 speeches, including to Argentine President Javier Milei, a right-wing libertarian seen as a close ally to U.S. President Donald Trump.

The first U.S. pope attracted ⁠Trump’s ire earlier this year after criticizing the Iran war.

Leo, who previously spent decades as a missionary in Peru, will also have dinner with the priests of Peru’s northwestern city of Chiclayo, where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023. 

Other events on the pope’s itinerary for the November 6 to November 17 tour include a visit to a federal prison complex in Buenos Aires, a Mass at a famous Catholic shrine in Lujan, Argentina, and a special address “on the challenges and hopes for the future of the Peruvian people” in Lima.

Leo, originally from Chicago, also has Peruvian citizenship. The pope, 71, is relatively young for a pontiff and in good health. The South America trip will be his fifth tour outside Italy in 2026. 

A Catholic pope ​has not visited South America since ​the ⁠late Pope Francis made a trip to Chile and Peru in 2018. Francis, originally from Argentina ⁠and ​the first pope from the ​Americas, never made a visit to his home country as ​pontiff.

Francis, who died in April 2025, made an even longer trip in September 2024, travelling nearly 33,000 km across a 12-day tour of Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. 

However, the Argentine pontiff, then in precarious health and using a wheelchair, only held about 30 events on that tour.

(Reporting by Joshua McElweeEditing by Keith Weir)