If the “popemania” that has taken over Peru’s capital is any indication, Pope Leo XIV is in for quite a welcome party when he arrives in his beloved former diocese of Chiclayo on Friday.
Chiclayo, population 700,000, is the commercial hub of Peru’s northern Pacific coast. But much of the world heard about 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.
And on Friday, Chiclayo is welcoming its former shepherd home. “I’m so glad he’s returning,” said Rolando Antonio Mendoza, who was selling posters bearing the pope’s image in front of the cathedral where Leo used to celebrate Mass. “Even though he’s now Pope Leo XIV, he hasn’t forgotten about his homeland.”
Church organisers say as many as a million people could turn out for Leo’s first big Mass in Peru, being held Friday morning on a massive field outside Chiclayo. The former Robert Prevost spent two decades as a missionary priest and bishop in Peru and credits the place and its people with teaching him how to be a shepherd.