Even if you see the Pope in Peru, you might not get a better selfie than this one I took with a Pope cutout in Chiclayo.
If you’re in Peru from November 11-15 you may be able to see the Pope!
Pope Leo XIV was Chiclayo’s Bishop Robert Prevost, born in Chicago but moved to Peru in 1985. He’s a Peruvian-American dual citizen and Peru is thrilled that one of his first trips as Pope will be a return to his adopted hometown of Chiclayo. He was bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023 and became such an integral part of the community that most Chiclayanos have personal stories of when then-bishop Prevost baptized or ministered to their family members.
Pope Leo will visit Lima, Chiclayo, a village in Cajamarca region, Cusco and Pucallpa.
Pope Leo XIV will meet the bishops of Peru in the Lima cathedral on November 12, 2026.
The Pope’s first stop in Peru is the capital city of Lima.
Official trips by any dignitary invariably start in Lima, the capital of Peru since 1535 when Francisco Pizarro founded it as the City of Kings. Rather than the public international airport, they generally arrive at the Grupo 8 Airforce base. The last time a Pope visited Lima was Pope Francisco in 2018. Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to first visit the Palacio de Gobierno and meet president Keiko Fujimori just after landing in Peru on November 11.
I and many Peruvians will be listening closely for anything that might have political messages because as a missionary in Peru in the 1980s and 90s, Robert Prevost was a vocal critic of then-president Alberto Fujimori. Alberto Fujimori later became a dictator and in 2009 was convicted of many crimes, including murder, kidnapping, embezzlement and crimes against humanity. His daughter, Keiko Fujimori was elected president this year, despite having previously been convicted of crimes and served time in prison.
After the Palacio de Gobierno, Pope Leo is going to the National Theater and on the 12th will meet the bishops of Peru in the Cathedral of Lima, followed by prayers with university students and young people in the stadium and dinner with the bishops. The next morning he will go to Chiclayo.
If you’re flying to Lima to follow the Pope’s footsteps, read my article about the Lima airport.
The Pope’s first stop in Chiclayo is the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Paz, where he left this heartwarming note on October 21, 2015, when he was Bishop Prevost.
The Pope goes home to Chiclayo.
Despite being born in Chicago, Robert Prevost dedicated much of his life to Peru and began his path to the Vatican as Bishop of Chiclayo. On November 13th he will land at the airforce base in Pimentel and go to the San Óscar Romero chapel. His first stop in Chiclayo is the Santuario Nuestra Señora de la Paz, well-known as one of his favorite places and the first place I visited when I went to Chiclayo last year.
His next stop on the 13th is the Universidad Católica Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo to speak with university students and youth. He will begin the 14th with mass in the cathedral, which I found mostly full every time I stopped by last year, even when there wasn’t a mass.
If you’re going to Chiclayo, I recommend contacting Sipán Tours, who arranged for me to meet church leaders at four churches around the city.
As Bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023, Robert Prevost frequently visited rural areas, ministering to the poor.
He is traveling by helicopter to celebrate a mass in the village of Santa Cruz, in the mountains of the Cajamarca province, though it’s part of the Chiclayo diocese.
When I spoke with people in Chiclayo about their former Bishop Prevost, everybody had a personal story to tell me about him. He very much spent his days interacting with people and I heard from many how their former bishop had baptized their children, performed their weddings and ministered to the sick and poor. In April 2021 he opened an oxygen plant, which he had been working with local authorities for since the pandemic began in 2020.
Cusco’s faith leaders will meet the Pope in a closed-door event in the cathedral.
The Pope will be in Cusco on Sunday, November 15th.
The pope will only be in Cusco for a few hours and will visit the cathedral for the Angelus prayers, a closed-door event during which he will gift a perizoma (sudario en español) to Cusco’s image of the Señor de los Temblores, the city’s patron and protector from earthquakes. His only public event will be up at Sacsayhuamán.
Many Cusqueñians, including myself, are very disappointed that he’ll spend so little time in Cusco. However, considering his recent lung cancer surgery, it’s understandable that his time at high altitude would be very limited. I suspect that at least one of his doctors wanted to prevent the trip altogether.
Pucallpa has a much more modern cathedral than Lima, Cusco or Chiclayo.
Pucallpa receives Pope Leo XIV on the same day.
In the afternoon of the 15th, the Pope will be taken from Cusco’s 3,400m/11,150ft above sea level down to the rainforest at 154m/505ft. I visited Pucallpa a few months ago to see where the Pope will visit the Peruvian jungle and I attended mass to speak with the priest.
Any Pope visiting Peru has to go to Lima and Cusco and considering he was bishop of Chiclayo, that city should obviously get most of his time. So, I asked why Pucallpa? The priest told me that Pope Leo XIV knows Peru well enough that he would understand any visit should include costa, sierra y selva, (coast, mountains and jungle). Pucallpa is the only major city in the Peruvian rainforest that has never received a papal visit, so it’s logically where the Pope would go. It’s finally Pucallpa’s turn.
Pope Leo XIV has such close ties with Chiclayo that he gifted his mitre to the congregation of San Juan Obrero.
The Pope’s visit to South America
Peru is part of a 12-day trip to South America, which was initially scheduled to be much longer. After his recent lung cancer diagnosis and surgery, the trip was scaled back considerably. When the trip was first announced, he was supposed to be in Peru for 8 days, November 10-17, and Cusco expected he’d be in their city for at least two days. Pope Leo XIV is still relatively young, 71 years old, so it seems reasonable to hope that he’ll come back to Peru someday. Follow the Pope’s travels and news on the Vatican website.
Following the Pope’s Footsteps
From his first ministry in rural Piura in 1985 until he was called to work in the Vatican in 2023, Robert Prevost was a missionary, priest and bishop on Peru’s northern coast from Lima almost to Ecuador.
