Pope Leo returns to former diocese where he ‘learned to be a shepherd’

Pope Leo XIV is touring Peru where he was once a missionary and bishop (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Leo XIV returned on Friday to his beloved former diocese of Chiclayo, an emotional homecoming that underscored his love for his Peruvian flock and their pride that their shepherd now runs the Catholic Church.

The pope’s Latam charter touched down at Chiclayo’s airport on the Pacific coast. On the side of the aircraft was the message that has followed Leo wherever he has gone in Peru: #LeonXIVvuelaaCasa (Leon XIV flies home).

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 was 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 on 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.

Pope Francis sent the Chicago-born 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 – a move which may have signalled that Francis saw in Prevost a potential successor.