In Chiclayo, Peru, Locals Cheer the ‘Peruvian Pope’

They remembered him in rubber boots, in a devastating flood, working side by side with the Red Cross. They shared images of him on a horse, in the countryside, wearing stylish aviator shades and crooning Christmas ballads — “Feliz Navidad!” — grinning and clapping alongside a rousing crowd.

Pope Leo XIV may have been born in Chicago, but the people of Chiclayo, a city in northern Peru where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023, have claimed him as one of their own.

“Welcome to Chiclayo, the land of the pope!” a flight attendant announced as a plane from Lima touched down on Thursday. Passengers burst into applause.

Pope Leo XIV spent much of his career outside the United States, arriving in northern Peru in 1984 at a time when internal conflict terrorized much of the countryside, killing many Peruvians and making the country an uncommon destination for foreigners.

In this photograph released by the Cruz de Motupe Brotherhood, the now-pope blessed a member of the clergy during a Mass in Chiclayo in 2021.Credit…Cruz de Motupe Brotherhood, via Associated Press

He stayed, except for a brief stint in Illinois, until roughly 1999, according to an official biography. And then he returned again in 2014, becoming bishop of Chiclayo in 2015.