Pope Leo XIV will return to Latin America for the first time since his election as pope from Nov. 6 to Nov. 17, the Vatican announced today. He will visit Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. Not surprisingly, he will spend more than half of that time—seven days—in Peru, where he spent half of his priestly life (some 20 years) before becoming pope.

He will make this long journey “having accepted the invitation of the Heads of State and ecclesiastical Authorities of the respective countries,” the Vatican said.

Before becoming pope, as prior general of the Augustinians from 2001-13, Robert Prevost visited at least 50 countries, and is known to like traveling. The journey to Latin America will be his sixth foreign trip since becoming pope after visits to Turkey and Lebanon, Monaco, four countries in Africa, Spain and (from Sept. 25 to Sept. 28) France.

His visit to Uruguay from Nov. 6 to 8 will make him only the second pope to visit that country, after John Paul II came in 1987 and 1988. It is the second smallest country in Latin America, about the size of Washington state, with a population of 3.4 million people. Roughly two million live in Montevideo, the capital city, where Pope Leo will reside during his visit. Uruguay is one of the most secularized states in the region; more than one-third of the country’s population is Catholic, while many others describe themselves as non-religious, agnostic or atheist and a smaller number belong to other religious denominations.

Leo XIV will also visit the city of Paysandú in western Uruguay, on the river that forms its border with Argentina. On Sunday, Nov. 8, he will visit the small south-central city of Florida, where the country’s independence was declared in 1825. There, he will celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three, patroness of Uruguay, whose image is housed in the city’s cathedral.

From Uruguay, Pope Leo will travel to neighboring Argentina, the homeland of Pope Francis. Leo XIV is only the second pope to visit the country: John Paul II came here first in 1982 in the midst of the war with England over the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands, and again in 1987 for World Youth Day; Pope Francis never returned to his homeland after his election as pope in 2013.

Argentina is the second largest country in Latin America and has a population of 46 million, around 58 percent of whom profess to be Catholic. Before his election as pope, when he was prior-general of the Augustinians, Robert Prevost visited the country. This time, he will spend just over three days in Argentina, from the evening of Nov. 8 to Nov. 11, and reside at the Vatican nunciature in Buenos Aires, the capital city. 

He will also visit Córdoba, the country’s second largest city and home to the 17th-century “Manzana Jesuítica,” a collection of historic buildings that includes ancient colonial churches and the campus of Argentina’s oldest university, the National University of Córdoba. He will also visit the city of Luján, home to the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Luján, to whom Pope Francis was greatly devoted and on whose feast day Leo was elected pope.

On the third and final leg of this long journey, Pope Leo will travel to Peru, a country of almost 35 million people. He has been a citizen of Peru since 2015, when Pope Francis appointed him bishop there, and this is a visit that Pope Leo has held dear in his heart ever since the moment of his election. He first came to this land as a missionary priest in Chulucanas in 1985, and later worked in Trujillo and Piura. Indeed, he has spent half of his priestly life working in the country, including more than eight years as bishop of Chiclayo and, for one year, as apostolic administrator of Callao, before Francis called him to Rome in 2023 to serve as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops and soon after made him cardinal.

He is the third pope to visit Peru, after John Paul II in 1985 and Francis in 2018. He has decided only to go to four Peruvian cities on this trip that lasts from Nov. 11 to Nov. 17. The first is Lima, the capital city, where he is expected to reside at the Vatican nunciature; next he will visit Chiclayo, the seat of the diocese in northwestern Peru where he was bishop, and then Cusco, a city 3,400 meters above sea level in the central Peruvian Andes that was once the heart of the Inca Empire. Finally, he will visit Pucallpa, a city in the Amazonian forest of eastern Peru. 

A more detailed program for this 12-day journey will be released later, the Vatican said without giving a date.

Gerard O’Connell is America’s senior Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.