Pope Leo XIV starts 12-day South America tour in Uruguay after lung surgery
Pope Leo XIV arrived in Montevideo on 6 November to open a 12-day visit to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, his first major overseas trip since lung cancer surgery about three weeks earlier, Vatican News and AP reported.
Pope Leo XIV landed in Montevideo on 6 November at the start of a 12-day apostolic journey to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, Vatican News and AP reported. It is his sixth international trip and his first major overseas tour since surgery to remove part of his right lung.
Uruguay’s President Yamandú Orsi received him at the airport. Crowds lined the Montevideo seafront as the pope travelled to Plaza Independencia for a welcome ceremony and meetings with authorities, before Vespers at the Metropolitan Cathedral.
The itinerary runs to 17 November and includes about a dozen flights and stops in Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Luján in Argentina, then Lima, Chiclayo, Cusco and Pucallpa in Peru, where Leo spent two decades as a missionary and bishop.
Vatican News said the programme in Montevideo begins with a welcome ceremony at 5:30 pm local time in Independence Square, followed by meetings with authorities, civil society and the diplomatic corps. During the trip, which ends on 17 November, the pope is expected to visit ten cities and deliver nearly 40 addresses in Spanish.