Leo XIV in Latin America: return to basics

For the first crossing of the Atlantic of his pontificate, the American Leo XIV will return to his adopted country. The first major pastoral tour in the New World of this native of Chicago (United States) included three stages, all in the southern hemisphere.

First Uruguay and Argentina, then Peru, where he is expected from November 11 to 17, 2026. It is in this last country that Robert Francis Prevost was a missionary for more than two decades, until requesting nationality in 2015, when he was bishop of Chiclayo.

According to the local immigration office, he had obtained “the highest score in the naturalization exam.” The future Leo

“In Chiclayo, a faithful people accompanied their bishop, shared their faith and gave so much to continue to be the faithful Church of Jesus Christ,” he thanked on the evening of his election to the See of Peter, attesting to the importance of his Peruvian years in his personal journey.

Caribbean roots

This newly acquired nationality adds to the pope’s multiple roots, symbolic of the migratory history of the Americas. Louis Prevost, his father, is the result of the meeting between an Italian and a Norman who emigrated to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century.^e century.

A singular union. The man was already married in Italy, he escaped accusations of bigamy by declaring his son, born in 1910, under the Norman surname of Prevost, the maiden name of his partner’s mother. A Normandy that Louis Prevost would return to as a soldier three decades later, participating in the 1944 landings.

On the maternal side, yet another story of the Americas is being told. Although his grandparents met in New Orleans, his grandfather was a native of what is now Haiti. According to the categories of the time, the latter was identified as “Black”, while his wife was a mixed-race Creole. Both are therefore descendants of victims of transatlantic trafficking.

Rich in Caribbean roots and adopted by South America, Leo XIV did not forget that he was American. On October 30, 2026, the press office of the Holy See indicated that the pope had exercised his right to vote by mail for the mid-term elections, an unprecedented act in the history of the papacy. A sign that his Vatican nationality is only one of the components of a multiple identity.