The visit of Pope Leo XIV to Peru is a historic opportunity for national unity.

There is news that transcends the day’s agenda. The official confirmation that Pope Leo It is not just about the visit of a head of state and leader of one of the most important churches in the world: it is about the return of a man who chose to be Peruvian.

Robert Francis Prevost arrived for the first time in these lands in 1985, as an Augustinian missionary destined for Chulucanas, in Piura. Since then, northern Peru was his spiritual laboratory and his adopted homeland. He was bishop of Chiclayo for almost a decade, apostolic administrator of Callao and a Peruvian citizen by his own conviction since August 2015. When the conclave elected him as the 267th Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, millions of Peruvians felt that something of their own had just occupied the center of the world. Now that man returns, and he does so by choosing Peru as one of his first destinations on the American continent.

The planned route – Lima, Chiclayo, Piura, Pucallpa and Cusco – is not a tourist itinerary: it is the geography of its own history. In each of these cities there are communities that knew him before he was pontiff, parishioners who gave him the name ‘Don Robert’ and who today are preparing to receive him as the shepherd who never completely left.

The comparison with the visit of Pope Francis in January 2018 is inevitable. The Peru of 2026 is not identical to that of that visit, but just as it happened on that occasion in a country where more than 70% of the population declares themselves Catholic, the arrival of the Supreme Pontiff has a dimension that goes far beyond diplomatic protocol. It is an event that calls for faith, memory and shared identity.

It is appropriate to receive Leo XIV with the seriousness, organization and spirit of unity that a visit of this magnitude demands. The Peruvian Pope returns home and the entire country should be ready to receive him for what he is: from everyone.