Credit : Reuters' X (photo from the Argentina leg of the tour)
LIMA, November 11, 2026 – Pope Leo XIV received the largest crowd of his papacy on Wednesday as he returned to Peru, telling the country where he served as a missionary for about two decades that he was coming back to his homeland, Reuters reported.
Local officials estimated that about 3 million people lined the streets of Lima. A Vatican statement, citing those officials, said the turnout set a new record for his papacy, after an estimated 2.5 million people attended an outdoor Mass he celebrated in Buenos Aires earlier this week. The crowds pressed against police and security barriers, waving flags and balloons and chanting “Leo, Leo, Leo”, while the pope waved from an open-air popemobile.
The pope landed at the Callao air base outside the capital after flying from Argentina. He was welcomed by Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori, according to the National Catholic Reporter, which also described banners along the route reading “the pope returns home”. The main plaza in Lima filled with people in pope-themed shirts, who cheered loudly as a big screen showed his plane touching down, Reuters said.
Speaking at Lima’s Gran Teatro Nacional, the pope said the visit held “a very special meaning” for him, mentioning the friendships he made in Peru and his love of ceviche. “Today I understand how much of this land remains with me and how much of my own story also belongs to you,” he said. “I can tell you, with deep gratitude, that I am returning to my homeland.”
The Chicago-born pope served as an Augustinian missionary in northern Peru before being named bishop of Chiclayo, where he served from 2015 to 2023. Because Peruvian law requires bishops to be citizens, he became a Peruvian citizen in 2015. He is the first Peruvian citizen to lead the Catholic Church. The visit to Peru is the final leg of a 12-day tour that also took him to Uruguay and Argentina.
The speech also carried a political message. Addressing President Fujimori, who won a narrow election victory earlier this year, the pope urged her to build confidence among her people and to confront the wounds of the country’s turbulent past. “Past events deserve to be treated with justice and sensitivity, leaving room for harmony to grow and for differences to be addressed with respect,” he said. Without referring directly to the internal conflict that lasted from around 1980 to 2000, he said Peru had endured “difficult times”.
Reuters said the remarks alluded to the contested legacy of Fujimori’s father, the late former president Alberto Fujimori, who governed from 1990 to 2000, was convicted of human rights abuses, was pardoned in 2017 and died in 2024. When that pardon was granted, the then Bishop Robert Prevost criticised it, saying the former president should personally seek forgiveness from victims. For her part, Keiko Fujimori said the visit was an invitation for Peru to pursue its “unfinished task” of national reconciliation.
The six-day Peru visit is scheduled to include 22 events, with three days in Chiclayo, according to Reuters. Peru has prepared with fervour, including a 14-metre statue of the pope with outstretched arms in a seaside park in Callao, pope-themed souvenirs on sale in Lima, and velvet dolls bearing his likeness stitched by inmates at the country’s largest women’s prison.
In Argentina on Wednesday, the pope closed that leg of the tour with another outdoor Mass that drew about 2 million people outside the shrine of Our Lady of Lujan. Reuters noted that he began the trip less than a month after lung cancer surgery and has appeared in good form, giving long speeches in a firm, clear voice.
Credit : Reuters’ X. Additional reporting: National Catholic Reporter, Associated Press.
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