Millions Cheer a Pope While a Fujimori Plays Host

President Keiko Fujimori stood on the tarmac at the Callao air base on Wednesday to greet Pope Leo XIV, the head of an institution with 1.4 billion followers, as the Vatican counted three million people in Lima's streets. That's the biggest crowd of his papacy, according to a Vatican statement, topping the 2.5 million who showed up for an outdoor Mass in Buenos Aires earlier this week.

The pope's arrival came one day ago, on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, local time. He's 71 and landed less than a month after lung cancer surgery. He still made long speeches, in what the report calls "a firm, clear voice."

Who Has the Power

The welcome was staged at the top. Peru erected a 14-metre (46ft) statue of Pope Leo with outstretched arms, towering over a seaside park in Callao. The Wong parade returned to Lima after seven years. Merchants sold pope-themed shirts and souvenirs. A big screen in the main plaza showed the plane touching down, and the crowd erupted.

The man at the center is the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. He was born in Chicago, spent two decades in Peru as a missionary priest and bishop, and took citizenship there. His time as bishop of Chiclayo ran from 2015 to 2023, and ended three years ago. He's scheduled to spend three days in that northern city.

The crowds held signs reading "Welcome home." The pope answered in kind at Lima's Gran Teatro Nacional: "Today, I understand how much of this land remains with me and how much of my own story also belongs to you. I can tell you, with deep gratitude, that I am returning to my homeland."

The Fujimori Problem

Then came the speech to the president. Fujimori's father Alberto led Peru through the turbulent 1990s and a brutal war against Maoist Shining Path rebels. Keiko Fujimori won her office by a narrow margin earlier this year.

The pope urged her to build confidence among her people and to confront the wounds of the country's past, alluding to her father's contested legacy. "Past events deserve to be treated with justice and sensitivity, leaving room for harmony to grow and for differences to be addressed with respect," he said. He also called on Peruvians to cultivate "honesty, integrity, and a willingness to engage with others," saying those qualities were essential to sustaining trust and democratic institutions.

Fujimori, welcoming him, called his visit an invitation to pursue Peru's "unfinished task" of national reconciliation.

There's a history here. When Alberto Fujimori was pardoned nine years ago, in 2017, Leo, then Bishop Robert Prevost, criticised the move. He said the former president should personally seek forgiveness from victims if Peru were to achieve genuine reconciliation. Nine years on, the pardoned man's daughter holds the presidency, and the victims named in that criticism aren't quoted anywhere in the day's coverage.

The Market Gets Its Blessing

The pope's tour didn't start in Peru. It ran through Uruguay and Argentina first. On Wednesday, the day he left Argentina, the government defended its economic plan. Presidential spokesman Adrián Ravier said the ideas of liberty are compatible with Catholic ideas.

So the visit ends the way these things go. Crowds in the millions. A president on the tarmac. A government spokesman borrowing the pontiff's moral weight for an economic program, the day he walked out the door. The people who filled the plaza got a screen, a souvenir shirt, and a speech about reconciliation delivered to the daughter of the man it concerns.