Pope Leo XIV has returned to a remote village in Peru where he once served as bishop, using the emotional homecoming to draw attention to migration, poverty and the pressures facing rural communities.
About 20,000 people travelled to Santa Cruz de Succhabamba in the northern Andes for the Pope’s visit, according to the Vatican. The village itself has a population of roughly 6,000.
Pope Leo XIV speaks about migration and struggling villages
During an outdoor Mass, Pope Leo spoke about people who are forced to leave their homeland in search of better opportunities. He said migration had contributed to communities being placed under threat, alongside falling birth rates and the unequal distribution of resources.
The Pope also urged those attending not to lose heart in the face of hardship. His message carried particular weight in Cajamarca, the region where Santa Cruz is located and where more than 40% of residents live in poverty, according to official data cited in the report.
Cajamarca has also experienced significant internal migration. Some 729,000 people born in the region now live elsewhere in Peru, reflecting the scale of movement away from rural communities in search of work and improved living conditions.
A personal return to Santa Cruz
The visit was more than a formal stop on the Pope’s Latin American tour. Santa Cruz is part of the Diocese of Chiclayo, where Pope Leo served as bishop from 2015 until 2023. During that period, he regularly travelled to the village to support its rural population.
He arrived by helicopter on Saturday and was welcomed with singing and cheering. After visiting a local parish, he travelled through the area in a popemobile, waving to people who had come from across the region.
Speaking at the parish, Pope Leo described his return as a joyful experience and said it felt like a dream made possible by God.
Local residents welcome their former bishop
The Pope’s history in the area shaped the response from local residents. Reverend Kevin Noriega, who was ordained by him in 2018, said the visit had generated enormous hope and emotion in Santa Cruz.
Residents had once known Pope Leo as “Father Robert”, the name associated with his years of pastoral work in Peru. His return as pontiff gave them the opportunity to see a familiar religious leader in a new role.
The welcome also reflected the importance of the Catholic Church in remote communities, where local clergy often provide both spiritual support and a connection to wider social concerns.
Peru is the most significant stop on Pope’s tour
Peru is the longest stop on Pope Leo XIV’s first tour of Latin America since he was elected in May 2025. The 12-day journey has also included Argentina and Uruguay, but his time in Peru has a particularly strong personal dimension.
The US-born Pope lived in Peru for extended periods between 1985 and 2023 and became a Peruvian citizen in 2015. Those connections have helped establish close relationships with communities across the country, including the rural population around Chiclayo.
His visit comes shortly after a lengthy trip that followed lung cancer surgery, adding further attention to the demands of his schedule. However, the focus of the Peru stop has remained on communities facing poverty, depopulation and the loss of residents through migration.
What comes next on the Latin America tour?
Pope Leo is due to leave Chiclayo on Sunday and travel to Cusco before continuing to a Peruvian section of the Amazon rainforest. The regional tour is expected to conclude on Monday, when he will return to Rome.
His message in Santa Cruz placed local challenges within a broader discussion about the future of rural communities. Declining populations, limited economic opportunities and the unequal distribution of resources are issues affecting many parts of the world, but they are especially visible in isolated areas such as Cajamarca.
The Pope’s return offered residents a moment of celebration while also giving him a platform to acknowledge the difficulties that have led so many people to leave.
The wider significance of Pope Leo XIV’s Peru visit
Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Santa Cruz combined personal history with a wider social message. He returned to a community he knew as a bishop, but used the occasion to speak to concerns shared by families across Peru: poverty, migration, shrinking villages and unequal access to resources.
For residents, the trip was a rare opportunity to welcome their former bishop as Pope. For the Vatican, it highlighted the importance of rural communities often overlooked by national and international attention.
The clearest takeaway from Pope Leo XIV’s Peru visit is that his first Latin American tour is placing social hardship and the voices of remote communities at the centre of his message.
