Blockades force faithful to make pilgrimage to see mass where pope was bishop

Angie Cordova did not expect to make a pilgrimage to see Pope Leo the 14th's mass in Pimentel, in northern Peru, this Friday morning (13). But circumstances forced her to.

His day started at 6am, when he left his house in the same city, and walked about 1 km with his family until he picked up a van. The vehicle left her in Fuerte Cáceres, more than 5 km from the mass location.

"We knew there were blockages and, although we have a car, we preferred not to leave it in the Fuerte Cáceres parking lot," she says. From the barracks, he walked to the Pimentel pampas, where faithful followed the religious leader's ceremony.

In normal times, the coastal city is the holiday destination for residents of Chiclayo, the city where Leo 14 was bishop for eight years.

This Friday, however, with caravans of faithful walking under the blue sky towards an open field with no sea in sight, the place looked like the scene of a procession in the desert.

Along the "Route of the Holy Mass", as indicated by the posters on the side of the road that connects Chiclayo to Pimentel, the reporter passed two roadblocks and saw hundreds of people walking to see the pontiff.

Alongside the pilgrims, street vendors offered a wide range of products: water, soft drinks, caps, benches and selfie sticks.

"I go to the gym, so it wasn't that hard for me," says Angie, for whom the Mass was a kind of reunion with the Pope. It was Bishop Robert Prevost, Leo's given name, who confirmed her, as she is keen to prove with a photo.

"We've known him since he said masses in the cathedral," he says. "When I saw him in the popemobile, I felt the same tranquility that he transmitted to us when he was bishop. I consider him to be the same person."

Leo 14 landed on Wednesday afternoon (11) in Peru, the last country on his tour of South America and where he lived for almost 20 years, even obtaining Peruvian citizenship.

The plane landed at 5 pm (7 pm in Brazil) at the Callao air base, 15 km from Lima, after a journey of almost five hours from Buenos Aires. Before his four-day visit to Argentina, he was in Uruguay over the weekend.

In a speech to authorities and diplomats in Lima, Leão asked Peruvian leaders to confront the country's past with "justice and sensitivity". The pontiff also called for dialogue, honesty and integrity — 7 of Peru's last 14 presidents have been detained — and stated that Peruvians deserve to "live without fear", a reference to the wave of crime affecting the country.

The visit is the grand finale of the greatest trip of the young papacy of Leo, who became leader of the Catholic Church in May last year, after the death of Francis.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the baptismal name of his predecessor and first Latin American pope, died in April without returning to his Argentina. With the visit to Peru, Leão avoids the same fate as Francisco and returns to one of the countries he called home.