A still-recovering pope will head home to Latin America and his beloved Peru for a 12-day trip

VATICAN CITY — Three weeks after lung cancer surgery, Pope Leo XIV is embarking on the longest and farthest trip of his pontificate: a 12-day, three-nation tour of Latin America that carries more personal and historic weight than any of his voyages to date.

The U.S.-born Leo is returning home to Peru, where the former Robert Prevost lived for two decades as a missionary priest and learned to be the pastor he is today. Leo holds Peruvian citizenship and is so attached to Peru’s people he gave them a shoutout in Spanish from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica on the night of his election.

Leo is also going to Argentina, the home of his predecessor, Pope Francis, to whom Leo owes his pontificate. It will be a homecoming of sorts there, too, since Francis never returned to Argentina after his 2013 election, leaving a complicated legacy that Leo will now have to navigate.

Leo starts his trip Friday in Uruguay, the least Catholic, most secular country in all of Latin America, where not even the big Catholic feast days get their due: Christmas in Uruguay is officially “Family Day” and Holy Week is “Tourism Week.”

Leo is nevertheless expected…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/world