Pope Leo returns to Peru, the country that shaped his path to the papacy

Riding on horseback to visit the most isolated Andean areas of his community, distributing food amid the Covid-19 pandemic, or wearing rubber boots in the water and mud of floods: this is how many Peruvians remember the man who is now Pope Leo XIV. Robert Prevost was in the trenches and alongside his people during Peru’s most difficult moments, and many of these memories will likely be front of mind among the public as they welcome the pope on his visit to his adopted homeland on Wednesday. The pope’s visit to Peru, which will include visits to Lima, Cusco and Chiclayo, is widely seen as a homecoming for a pontiff who is a Peruvian citizen and who knows the country in depth. A young Prevost first arrived in the South American country as a missionary in 1985.