By Joshua McElwee, Cassandra Garrison and Marco Aquino
LIMA, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Crowds flooded Lima’s streets on Thursday, the second day of Pope Leo’s emotional return to Peru, which has already broken crowd records in the country where he lived for about 20 years.
Pilgrims, families and church groups packed much of Lima’s historic center, which effectively shut down as people lined streets for miles, pressing against police and security barriers as Leo toured in an open-air popemobile.
Leo is on the final and most personal leg of a three-country tour of South America. Originally from Chicago, the pope served as a missionary and bishop in Peru and holds US and Peruvian citizenship.
In a speech on arrival in the country on Wednesday, amid a record crowd of 3 million on Lima’s streets, the pope declared to wide applause at the Gran Teatro Nacional that he considered Peru his homeland.
Carmen Moreno, 78, wiped away tears after watching Leo’s popemobile pass by on Wednesday evening in Lima’s Plaza de Armas, where she had waited with her daughter for seven hours. She said his return felt deeply personal for Peruvians, who had embraced him long before he became pope.
“He is returning to the land where he became who he is,” Moreno said. “I feel so much joy seeing how much we, the Peruvian people, love him.”
On Thursday, Leo addressed crowds as “my dear Peruvian people.”
“Thank you for being here and welcoming me with open hearts, as your brother,” he said. “You make me feel at home.”
Describing Peru’s cultural diversity and unique geography, Leo said, “this is my Peru,” drawing loud applause.
Crowds in Peru have been the largest of Leo’s 18-month papacy, and the largest for a pope since some 7 million people greeted his predecessor Francis in the Philippines in 2015.
POPE URGES FUJIMORI TO HEAL PERU’S WOUNDS
On Wednesday, Leo urged Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori to confront the wounds of the country’s turbulent past and rebuild trust among her people after her narrow victory in an election earlier this year marred by fraud accusations.
Moreno said her excitement for Leo was mixed with anxiety over violence in Peru, where crime has surged due to a combination of expanding organized crime and weakening state institutions.
She said she hoped Leo would pray for Peru and “for crime to subside.”
Leo is on one of the most intense foreign tours organized for a Catholic pope in decades, which started less than a month after he underwent surgery for lung cancer. The pope has seemed in good form throughout the trip, leading about five public events a day and giving long speeches in a firm, clear voice.
He had six events on Thursday, including a speech on the country’s future and a prayer vigil with young people in the national soccer stadium that drew a Vatican-estimated 360,000 people inside the stadium and on surrounding streets.
In a meeting with Peru’s bishops, Leo referenced the clergy abuse scandals that have tarnished the Church’s reputation across the world, urging the clerics to treat victims fairly.
The pope, who is expected to meet with victims in Peru, called for “an ever more resolute commitment to fostering a culture of prevention and protection … in light of such crimes.”
Later on Thursday, Leo met with six Peruvian victims of abuse by Catholic clergy and discussed how the Church can better listen to victims.
On Friday, Leo is due to travel to the northern city of Chiclayo, where he served as bishop from 2015 to 2023, before continuing over the weekend to Cusco, in the Andes Mountains, and the Amazonian city of Pucallpa.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee, Cassandra Garrison and Marco Aquino in Lima, additional reporting by Leila Miller, additional writing by Lucinda Elliott, editing by Alex Richardson, Rod Nickel and Jonathan Spicer )
