CHICLAYO, Peru, Nov 13 — Pope Leo XIV returned on Friday to his beloved former diocese of Chiclayo in northern Peru and said it was a “joy” to be home, in an emotional homecoming that underscored his love for his Peruvian flock and their pride that their shepherd now runs the Catholic Church, the Associated Press reported. “What a joy it is to return to Chiclayo!” Leo said at the start of his homily. “It is a blessing for me to be with you once again.”

Source: Associated Press

The Vatican estimated that about 500,000 people gathered for the open-air Mass at Pampas de Pimentel, a desert park just outside Chiclayo, while another million people lined his motorcade route, Reuters reported. As Leo looped through the crowd in his popemobile under a scorching sun and temperatures of 31 C (87 F), people waved white-and-yellow Vatican flags and shouted, “The pope is from Chiclayo.” Some had camped overnight to reach the Mass, while others walked in the hot sun to avoid bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Source: Reuters via Al Jazeera

“Padre Roberto” comes home

Before he was elected pope, Leo spent about two decades working in Peru as a missionary priest and served as bishop of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023, where he is still known as “Padre Roberto” and where his image is ubiquitous, Reuters reported. The Chicago-born pope, formerly Robert Francis Prevost, also holds Peruvian citizenship and on Wednesday declared the country his homeland. Pope Francis sent the Augustinian to take over as bishop of Chiclayo in 2014, and he stayed until Francis summoned him to Rome in 2023 to run the Vatican's bishops' office, AP said.

Friday's Mass came exactly one month after Leo underwent surgery for lung cancer, amid fears that the trip would have to be cancelled. Doctors have said the cancer was localised, had not spread, and would not require further treatment, Reuters reported. Leo thanked the faithful especially for their prayers during his recent hospitalisation, and declared that “with God's help, I am overcoming” the health scare, according to AP. Speaking to Peruvian bishops earlier in the trip, he had joked about how some “doubting Thomases” did not think he would make it because of the surgery.

“As I look at your faces, a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord arises in my heart for the blessing you have been and continue to be in my life,” Leo told the crowd, thanking them for their support during his recovery, Reuters reported.

Beloved for staying close to the poor

In Chiclayo, a coastal city of about 620,000 people, Leo earned a reputation for staying close to poor communities during times of crisis, including devastating coastal floods and the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported. AP said he remains beloved for championing social justice and for his closeness to the people, especially poor people, through crises that also included a surge of Venezuelan migrants in 2018. “I'm elated. He has decided to return to Chiclayo and we have him here, with us — home,” said Julie Albujar, who woke before dawn with her sister to travel to the Mass site. “This is a party and it's a sign of our faith and our love for the pope.”

Peru is the final stop of Leo's 12-day, three-country South America tour, after visits to Argentina and Uruguay, and approximately 12 million people have come to see him at public events so far, Reuters reported. Ever since he touched down on Peruvian soil on Wednesday, the normally reserved 71-year-old pope has seemed at turns giddy and overwhelmed with emotion, AP said — singing the national anthem at the presidential palace on arrival, and singing along on Thursday night when some 60,000 young Peruvians sang for him in a Lima stadium.

After the Mass, Leo's other main events of the day included a meeting with Chiclayo clergy and seminarians and a speech to the Catholic university where he served as chancellor during his years as bishop, AP reported. The university is named for the 16th-century first archbishop of Lima, St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, whose ministry of travelling long distances to be with his flock, and defending the rights of Indigenous and enslaved peoples, Leo is said to have modelled his own ministry on.

Chiclayo, population 700,000, is the commercial hub of Peru's northern Pacific coast, but much of the world first heard of it on the night of Leo's election, May 8, 2025, when he gave Chiclayo a shoutout, in Spanish, from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica, AP recalled. On Friday, the city welcomed its former shepherd home — and for the people who still call him Padre Roberto, the homecoming was the centrepiece of the whole tour.