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Pope Leo XIV to travel 19,000 miles on 14 flights during trip to Peru, Argentina, and Uruguay
Confirmed
In Short: Pope Leo XIV will travel over 19,000 miles on 14 flights during a 12-day trip to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru, beginning Nov. 6.
Pope Leo XIV is set to embark on a 12-day journey to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru, covering over 19,000 miles on 14 flights, according to the Vatican's published schedule. The trip, which begins on November 6, marks the first papal visit to Latin America during his pontificate.
The journey will start with a 14-hour flight from Rome to Montevideo, Uruguay, where Pope Leo will be the first pope to visit since St. John Paul II. He will meet with President Yamandú Orsi and hold a courtesy visit at the Edificio José Artigas.
Pope Leo will then travel to Paysandú, a cultural and economic hub on the border with Argentina, and Florida, home to the National Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three. He will celebrate Mass at the sanctuary, declared by Pope Pius XI as the patroness of Uruguay.
The trip will also include visits to Argentina and Peru. In Argentina, government officials expect 7 million people to turn out for the pope's visit. In Peru, Pope Leo will return to Chiclayo, where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023.
Pope Leo's journey will be the longest international trip of his pontificate, nearly double the 17,000 kilometers he traveled during his trip to Africa earlier this year.
The Vatican has released separate logos and mottos for each country, with the Peruvian logo featuring Pope Leo surrounded by Peruvian saints in front of a map enclosed in a large red heart.
What's confirmed
- Pope Leo XIV is set to embark on a 12-day journey to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru, covering over 19,000 miles on 14 flights, according to the Vatican's published schedule. The trip, which begins on November 6, marks the first papal visit to Latin America during his pontificate.
- The journey will start with a 14-hour flight from Rome to Montevideo, Uruguay, where Pope Leo will be the first pope to visit since St. John Paul II. He will meet with President Yamandú Orsi and hold a courtesy visit at the Edificio José Artigas.
- Pope Leo will then travel to Paysandú, a cultural and economic hub on the border with Argentina, and Florida, home to the National Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three. He will celebrate Mass at the sanctuary, declared by Pope Pius XI as the patroness of Uruguay.
- The trip will also include visits to Argentina and Peru. In Argentina, government officials expect 7 million people to turn out for the pope's visit. In Peru, Pope Leo will return to Chiclayo, where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023.
- Pope Leo's journey will be the longest international trip of his pontificate, nearly double the 17,000 kilometers he traveled during his trip to Africa earlier this year.
- The Vatican has released separate logos and mottos for each country, with the Peruvian logo featuring Pope Leo surrounded by Peruvian saints in front of a map enclosed in a large red heart.
What's still developing
- In between, the pope will travel to a new de s tination nearly every day, including a 2,200-mile flight from Buenos Aires to Lima and a military helicopter flight Nov.
- Full details of Pope Leo XIV’s mammoth voyage to South America have been released by the Vatican, showing the Pontiff is due to take 14 flights and travel over 19,000 miles during the course of the 12 days.
- Though slow in some areas of his pontificate, Leo appears to have begun his reign with a keen desire to travel as much as possible, and the upcoming 12-day trip to South America will be a test of stamina if nothing else.
- Only two days are without flights in the entire trip, with Leo’s schedule involving numerous national plane journeys to reach different corners of the Church.
- In total, Leo will celebrate nine public Masses on the trip, participate in three prayer vigils, meet with the respective bishops’ conferences and synodal teams and also conduct a meeting with missionaries and representatives of the Amazon peoples.
- Departing from Rome early in the morning on November 6, Leo will make the fourteen-and-a-half-hour flight to Uruguay’s capital city of Montevideo.
- The Pope will meet privately with President Yamandú Orsi before presiding over his first liturgical ceremony – Vespers in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and Saints Philip and James.
- On November 7 he will fly to Paysandú to celebrate Mass, before then returning to Montevideo for three events: meeting with Catholic parishioners, addressing the Catholic University of Uruguay and an evening prayer vigil.
- As he showed during his four-nation Africa trip in April, the 71-year-old Leo has no qualms about covering vast distances and working late into the night when he’s on the road.
- The visit begins in Uruguay, whose secular identity is so deeply rooted that Christmas is officially Family Day and Holy Week is Tourism Week.
- The chapel's reconstruction was spearheaded during Leo's time as bishop of Chiclayo, and its complete renovation was later achieved through the efforts of the Rev. Edgar Rimaycuna, the pope’s personal secretary who joined him in Rome and is now ubiquitous by his side.
- ROME -- ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV will retrace his steps as a missionary priest when he returns to Peru in November in his longest trip to date that will also take him to Uruguay and Argentina, where his Argentine predecessor Pope Francis never returned.