(OSV News) — Flying to South America a little over three weeks after his surgery for lung cancer, Pope Leo XIV is going “personally enthusiastic about this trip” with “the ordinary medical assistance” in force, Vatican communicators confirmed during a Nov. 3 briefing in the Vatican Press Office.
The Nov. 6-17 trip will be the first papal visit to Latin America of Pope Leo’s pontificate. Over 12 days, he will celebrate nine public Masses, visit seven cathedrals and preside over two stadium prayer vigils.
Matteo Bruni, Holy See Press Office director, said “about 36 speeches” of the pope will be delivered during the journey.
Maria Monstserrat Alvarado, who assumed her position as prefect of the Dicastery for Communication Nov. 1, told journalists that “he’s going to give you a lot of improvised texts to work with” — something she noted is a “beautiful thing” as “he wants to share his heart and we want to help him do that.”
The pope, she said, will be “giving away his heart in a language that is true to him,” like he did in Spain. “You will see that again, but in a totally different way, because he knows these streets.”
Pope Leo first arrived in Peru in 1985 and the missionary work shaped his vision for the universal Church. There he was appointed bishop and there he experienced challenges and joys of shepherding his flock.
Pope Leo fit to undertake the trip without special equipment needed
Speaking to journalists for the first time in a press conference after assuming her role as the first laywoman prefect of the Vatican dicastery, Alvarado said the pope is “excited” before his longest trip of the pontificate so far, and “confirmed this trip with no changes,” adding that he’s “grateful” for the prayers and medical concern.
“When he hears those messages of concern, questions about the doctors, all he hears is the way that people love and have hope for what this journey will bring,” Alvarado said.
During the press briefing Nov. 3, journalists repeatedly asked about the health challenges of changing altitudes and helicopter flights into the Andes region for the pope roughly a month after removing part of his lung during the Oct. 13 surgery.
Bruni confirmed that “there’s no particular accommodation or particular equipment which is being used” medically wise and that “the pope was pretty clear” in his Oct. 26 statement that “the plan is as it is” and no changes to the initial schedule are planned due to his recent hospital stay.
The nature of the surgery, Bruni said, is that it “does not create a permanent condition,” adding that Pope Francis was missing part of a lung and was traveling without disruptions.
He can ‘go about life’ without needing ‘particular precautions’
“Were any special medical arrangements needed for those journeys? Take our trip to the Holy Land, for example: We packed a week’s worth of events into just three days. It is a condition that allows one to go about life without needing any particular precautions,” Bruni said.
“Should anything change, I will be sure to let you know, but as things stand — based on what the doctors have told us — no therapy is required, and he is clinically fit to undertake this trip,” the press director said.
Alvarado meanwhile mentioned the Nov. 2 Campo Verano Cemetery All Souls’ Mass: “I don’t know if you all watched yesterday’s Mass. His stamina is fantastic,” she pointed out.
“The way that he’s singing is incredible. And you can only sing if your lungs are really strong,” Alvarado said, adding the pope “was past the days of recovery that were required, the 14 days to be able to test him.”
His doctors, she said, “are very confident and he’ll have plenty of medical care on board should something happen. But we don’t see that in his prognosis, the way that he’s acting.”
The journey to Latin America begins Nov. 6 with a flight of more than 14 hours and 6,900 miles from Rome to Montevideo, Uruguay. The return flight from Lima, Peru, to Rome covers 6,700 miles. In between, the pope will travel to a new destination nearly every day, including a 2,200-mile flight from Buenos Aires to Lima and a military helicopter flight Nov. 14 to the Andes mountain town of Santa Cruz de Succhabamba, Peru.
By comparison, Pope Leo traveled 11,000 miles over 11 days during his trip to Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea earlier this year. The trip culminates with a return to Chiclayo, Peru, where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023.
Pope Leo coming home with a message of peace
Asked about the objectives of the trip, Alvarado said there are “two really important parts of what he wants this trip to be.”
First is the homecoming of a pope with Peruvian citizenship to Latin America. “He feels that very deeply,” she pointed out, as “this is a place that gave him his ministry and inspired who he is as a pastor.”
She said the continent taught the pope “the way that he views encounter and the … diverse needs of the Church” and “opened his eyes in a way that’s new and different.”
Reaching for her phone, Alvarado read the second objective and what she said the pope asked her to share with journalists — to help “share his message of peace and encounter with the world” — something she pointed out “is expressed in Latin America through its diverse people and cultures.”
Healing, peace, dialogue important elements of the trip
She said the pope hopes “that everyone will be able to see the importance of encounter, for healing and for peace, and why dialogue is so important and the elements of the trip really bring about.”
Pope Leo will start his journey in Uruguay — the most secularized country in Latin America, where his journey will bring him before a small Marian image that Uruguay’s determined secularization could never entirely separate from the country’s national identity — the Virgin of the Thirty-Three.
In Argentina, where he arrives Nov. 8, he will meet a challenge of stepping into the land of the Argentine pontiff, Pope Francis, who never visited his homeland as pope, and a country that Archbishop Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva of Buenos Aires recently described as “a wounded Argentina, a divided Argentina.”
In Peru, he will visit Lima, Chiclayo, Santa Cruz de Succhabamba and Cusco in the Andes and Amazonian Pucallpa, skipping Chulucanas and Trujillo where he served as missionary.
Bruni said while the trip’s program includes “some elements of the pope’s personal history,” it is also “an opportunity to reach those places that normally are not reached,” giving the pope an opportunity to be “following the footsteps of those missionaries who wanted to reach places where Christ had not been taken before” showcasing a “sense of gratitude towards their huge work, the huge work that was done in the beginning of Christianity in Latin America.”
“You’re seeing this balance between Prevost and Pope Leo XIV,” in the trip’s schedule, Alvarado said, referencing the pope’s given last name.
“He belongs to the world. And as much as his heart is in certain places in Peru, he also has to perform the pastoral duties of gathering himself with the individuals who lead these countries and have invited him to these countries,” she said, adding that “there’s a real balance there in terms of where he would love to go … as well as the duties he must perform as the Holy Father.”
Alvarado’s first official trip in the papal entourage
Asked about her own emotions prior to the first official trip with the pope, she said “it is an incredible honor and privilege to to be seated as part of his entourage.”
“It’s incredibly emotional to think about a journey that is going to tell us so much about his heart,” she said.
Pointing to one of the earlier questions about Uruguay — the most secularized country on the apostolic trip itinerary, Alvarado said: “Why not? Everyone needs to hear the message of Jesus Christ, and that is part of who Pope Leo is.”
She said the pontiff “understands that he’s not only going to talk to countries and representatives there, he’s going to meet people and meet hearts and hopefully inspire them to look again for the places where the Church was big and now is small” and “reconsider.”
“That’s very much a part of where my heart is and why I said yes to this job.”
Paulina Guzik is international editor for OSV News. Follow her on X @Guzik_Paulina.
