Pope Leo XIV on Sunday will traverse the length of Peru in what marks the penultimate day of his Latin American tour. The leader of the Catholic church – who underwent cancer surgery just a month ago – warned that Peru's remote Inca communities are under threat as poverty continues to drive locals out of their homeland in search of better futures.

This photo, released by Vatican Media, shows Pope Leo XIV greeting the faithful before a prayer meeting in Zana, in the province of Chiclayo, Peru, on November 14, 2026. © Simone Risoluti, AFP

Pope Leo XIV warned that the heartland of the ancient Inca Empire is "suffering", as the remote, poverty-stricken communities he served as a missionary in Peru shrink dramatically.

The head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics flew by helicopter to the isolated town of Santa Cruz de Succhabamba in the Andes mountains – an area he visited on horseback when he lived in Peru as Robert Francis Prevost.

Despite undergoing cancer surgery just one month ago, the 71-year-old pope was determined to visit the town – which sits among green peaks at an altitude of over 2,000 metres (6,560 feet) – during his 12-day tour of South America.

Gathered in front of colorful murals of the pope, thousands of faithful in the streets of Santa Cruz cheered his arrival.

At an open-air Mass, the pontiff spoke with pleasure of returning to the "steep hills, ravines and fertile valleys, in a land with Andean roots, where the Inca Empire flourished and which is the cradle of a profound Christian faith".

But the communities are now under threat, he said, acknowledging the "suffering of those who are forced to leave their homeland in search of a better future" in the major coastal cities, such as Lima and Trujillo.

Over 40 percent of the population in the Cajamarca region, where Santa Cruz de Succhabamba is located, live in poverty – the highest such figure in the country, according to official data.

The region has lost the most inhabitants to internal migration in Peru, with some 729,000 people who were born there now living elsewhere.

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Cover image: Half a million people gather for an open-air mass by Pope Leo in Peru REUTERS - Angela Ponce 01:47

'Emptying villages'

Communities were also grappling with "declining birth rates that are emptying villages", and the unequal distribution of the land's resources, Leo said.

But he praised those who, "with ingenuity and an entrepreneurial spirit, strive to provide people with dignified jobs", from farmers to shopkeepers and small-business owners.

Leo did a tour in a popemobile, waving to pilgrims who have travelled across the region to see him, many camping out overnight or walking mountain paths from surrounding villages in the morning.

"We are filled with joy and happiness that he is returning," 42-year-old Idaura Fernandez told AFP.

Irma Villalobos, 61, who was born in Santa Cruz but lives in Chiclayo near the coast, said Leo's visit was "very profound, very significant", and she hoped his presence would "transform" the province.

According to Jorge Villegas, part of the organising committee for the pope's trip, Leo had originally wanted to add a second stop in an even more remote location.

"He wanted to visit Incahuasi – a place much higher up than Santa Cruz, where the population still speak Quechua, an Indigenous language of Peru," Villegas told AFP.

Prevost, who has Peruvian citizenship, celebrated Mass in Incahuasi in 2023, reaching the town despite heavy rains and a dangerous river crossing.

But it "proved somewhat complicated" to get him there as pope, Villegas said.

Discrimination

Earlier Saturday, the US-born pope returned to his former cathedral in Chiclayo, where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023, and where many people said they remembered him fondly.

In Zana, some 45 kilometres southeast, Leo was welcomed by a group of small children who ran to hug him, before he visited a shrine to Toribio de Mogrovejo, one of the most important Catholic saints in Latin America.

The pope paid tribute to "the memory of generations of Africans who were torn from their homes and subjected to slavery" in Zana, once a wealthy colonial town known for its sugar plantations and large Afro-Peruvian population.

He also spoke of the "many families" that "suffer because of crime, extortion and insecurity", saying he was "pained at the thought of those who live in fear ... and of those who continue to experience discrimination".

Pilgrim Melissa Flores Uceda, 38, said the pope's message resonates because "discrimination continues today".

Jesus Juarez Gutierrez, a "very happy" 11-year-old altar boy dressed in papal robes, said he wanted nothing more than the pope's blessing.

On Sunday, Leo will head to Cusco, more than 3,400 metres above sea level, and on to the Amazon rainforest, before wrapping up his tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru on Monday.