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

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.