Pope Leo XIV made an emotional arrival on Friday to Chiclayo, the northern region of Peru where he long served as bishop before being prompted to the Vatican and ultimately chosen as pope.
\n\nAn estimated half a million people met the pope there, according to Vatican News, in a vast desert plain area known as the Pampas of Pimentel in which authorities organized a congregation space for the pope to address the crowd and preside over Mass. The crowd that convened to welcome the pope to greater Chiclayo is believed to have included over a million people.
\n\nFor comparison, the city of Chiclayo is estimated to have a population of slightly over 630,000 people. Prior to the ceremony, Chiclayo locals staged a traditional music and dance number to celebrate the pope’s return and the earthly head of the Catholic Church took some moments to greet the massive audience.
\n\nIn the streets of Chiclayo, the majority Catholic population staged their own impromptu dance parties to welcome the pontiff, dancing the marinera, the national dance of Peru.
\n\nThe hundreds of thousands organizing to greet the pope for his Mass began arriving around midnight, according to the Peruvian newspaper El Comercio, seeking a…
Original source: https://www.breitbart.com/latin-america/
