LIMA, Peru (AP) — Roman Catholics across South America responded to news of Pope Leo XIV’s lung cancer diagnosis with an outpouring of prayers and support, along with concerns about whether the first American pope would go ahead with his highly anticipated and physically demanding visit to the region next month.
Across the three countries on his itinerary — secular Uruguay, predominantly Catholic Argentina and Leo's adopted homeland of Peru — government officials wished the pontiff a swift recovery, church leaders urged patience and worshippers gathered to pray.
The Vatican said Wednesday that Leo was recuperating as expected after surgery and that the trip remained on his schedule. But Peruvian President Keiko Fujimori sounded a more cautious note, telling reporters that his recovery could take “several weeks, longer than expected,” potentially forcing changes to the Nov. 6-17 itinerary.
The 12-day South American tour would be the longest of Leo’s papacy so far, covering more than 31,000 kilometers (19,000 miles) on a dozen flights and two helicopter rides. Across Uruguay and Argentina — two countries last visited by a pope in the 1980s — Leo would celebrate Masses and meet with worshippers, clergy and political leaders in six cities.
The longest leg of the trip would take Leo, 71, to Peru, where he spent 20 years as a missionary and bishop of the coastal city of Chiclayo. From the capital, Lima, he is scheduled to travel north to his former diocese, then on to the ancient Inca capital of Cusco high in the Andes and the Amazonian city of Pucallpa. The thin mountain air in Cusco, roughly 3,400 meters (11,150 feet) above sea level, could pose a particular challenge so soon after Leo’s lung surgery.
Church officials in Argentina, the homeland of Leo's predecessor Pope Francis, urged parishioners to put the pontiff's well-being ahead of their excitement over the country’s first papal visit in four decades.
“Sometimes we think selfishly about his coming, but the first thing we need to think about is his health,” said Cardinal Ángel Rossi, the archbishop of Córdoba, one of Leo’s planned stops.
Leaders across Argentina's deep ideological divide, from right-wing President Javier Milei to his left-wing rival, Buenos Aires Gov. Axel Kicillof, joined in wishing the pope a speedy recovery.
“All of Argentina stands with His Holiness in affection and prayer,” said Milei, who was raised Catholic but has more recently explored conversion to Judaism.
In neighboring Uruguay, where Leo’s visit is expected to energize the Catholic minority in a country that officially celebrates Christmas as Family Day, Cardinal Daniel Sturla, the archbishop of Montevideo, tempered hopes for the historic visit.
“First, let us pray that he comes. We run the risk of being told in the coming days that he won’t be able to come,” Sturla told local media Tuesday, adding that the decision will ultimately rest with the pope’s doctors.
In Chiclayo, one of Peru’s largest cities, excitement over Leo’s anticipated homecoming turned to apprehension after his diagnosis.
“Because of the affection that we feel for the Holy Father, who is also our bishop, we’re worried about his health and about what will come next,” said the Rev. Elmer Uchofen, who recalled how the future pope helped secure oxygen production plants during the COVID-19 pandemic, waded through mud in rubber boots to aid flood victims and celebrated Mass with prisoners in Chiclayo.
Betania Marina Rodríguez, who leads a local association for Venezuelan migrants in Chiclayo and also worked closely with Leo, said she felt a collision of conflicting emotions.
“We all want him to be healthy and strong,” she said. “But we also long to see him, hear him and receive his blessing.”
In Lima, Peruvians crossed themselves and recited the rosary before a life-size silicone statue of the pontiff outside a church. Others gathered at the centuries-old Las Nazarenas Monastery, home to a revered image of the crucified Jesus that draws vast religious processions each October.
Teresa Ramírez, 73, clutched red, white and yellow roses — the combined colors of the Peruvian and Vatican flags — at the monastery as she offered her blessings to the man she called “the most beloved Peruvian in the world.”
“There’s still time for him to come to Peru,” she said. “May our heavenly Father’s will be done.”
Leo, born Robert Prevost in Chicago, became a Peruvian citizen in 2015 and renewed his national identity document last year after becoming pope.
At a nursing home in the Peruvian port city of Callao, another stop on Leo’s planned itinerary, Mayela Medina, 52, expressed hope that the prayers of millions of Peruvians would bring comfort to the convalescing pope.
“I went through dark days and long nights when I struggled to breathe,” she said, recalling her own battle with respiratory illness. “I pray to God with all my soul that he does not feel abandoned.”
DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Associated Press writer Luis Andres Henao contributed to this report from Princeton, New Jersey.
Pope Leo XIV arrives at the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, where he's expected to be operated to remove a lung nodule. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Ice cream vendor Alicia Caso touches a life-size statue of Pope Leo XIV standing on display outside a church in the Barranco neighborhood of Lima, Peru, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, a month before the pope's visit to Peru. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a year after President Donald Trump deployed National Guard members to begin patrolling the streets of the nation's capital, a federal appeals court on Wednesday opened a hearing on the legality of his action by asking the government if there were any limits on a president's authority to do so.
The hearing began with the three-judge panel collectively questioning the government’s attorney, Eric McArthur. Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard asked how the government's argument about an administration's authorities was “not federalization and therefore running up against" the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 U.S. law forbidding the use of the federal military for domestic law enforcement unless authorized by the Constitution or Congress.
McArthur, answering Judge Judith Rogers' question on the limits of a president's action, said, “I think the limiting principle in our position is the president has to be calling out the guard in aid of the civil authorities.”
Trump deployed the guard in August 2025 as part of what he said was a crime-fighting mission in Washington, D.C. The force, which rose to a peak of about 5,000 troops over the summer, has supported arrest operations, patrolled city streets and neighborhoods and participated in cleanup efforts.
Trump’s Republican administration says the deployment has contributed to a decrease in crime in the city, where crime was already on the decline before the National Guard arrived. Officials and activists in the overwhelmingly Democratic city say the deployment is a waste of taxpayer money and has normalized the militarization of a major American city.
Mitchell Reich, who was arguing for D.C., did not escape the hearing unscathed, with the panel concentrating on his argument that there are laws and guidelines that lay out a president's ability to call out the guard and there were circumstances when those steps would be unnecessary, including during an invasion or an insurrection.
“If there’s any kind of organized violence in the district, the president can deploy the guard for the purpose of suppressing the same,” he said.
The 90-minute hearing came months after a different three-judge panel paused a lower court’s ruling that Trump's deployment of the guard was illegal.
Three judges who issued the stay last December — two appointed by Trump and one appointed by President Barack Obama, a Democrat — said in a unanimous 32-page ruling that a number of factors favored the Trump administration, including the “disruption to the lives of thousands of service members,” as well as what it said was the president’s interest “in the protection of federal governmental functions and property within the nation’s capital.”
The three judges on the panel on Wednesday were nominated by Democratic presidents: Pillard by Obama, Rogers by Bill Clinton and Bradley Garcia by Joe Biden.
At the heart of the court case, brought by D.C.'s attorney general, is whether the president has the authority to deploy the National Guard to the city, which, as a federal district, has limited autonomy over its own affairs. The U.S. Constitution gives federal lawmakers authority over the District of Columbia, while the Home Rule Act of 1973 lets residents elect a mayor, a council and neighborhood commissioners.
The city has argued that the mobilization is an illegal use of the military for domestic law enforcement, a point Reich made during the hearing.
Last December, the three-judge panel that paused the lower court's ruling said Trump might prevail in his argument that the president “possesses a unique power” to mobilize the guard in Washington.
Those judges found that the district “has not identified any ongoing injury to its statutory interests.”
Even if D.C. wins at the appeals court level, the Trump administration will undoubtedly go to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has already shown deference to the president in a number of cases.
Syracuse law professor William Banks said D.C. might have a slim argument under its home rule, questioning whether National Guard units can be deployed to the city when it isn’t authorized by local law.
But, he said, outside of that argument “there is no overarching federal principle that would bail out the district in this case."
Because D.C. is not a state and because the president is commander in chief, there’s a "tremendous amount of leeway and discretion for the president” to control or delegate control of the local National Guard and out-of-state units, Banks said.
U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb concluded last November that Trump’s military takeover in Washington illegally intrudes on local officials’ authority to direct law enforcement in the district.
Cobb, a Biden nominee, found that while the president does have authority to protect federal functioning and property, he can’t unilaterally deploy the D.C. National Guard to help with crime control as he sees fit or call in troops from other states.
The appeals court stayed the order and has allowed the guard to remain in place while the case is pending.
The mobilization, extended until January 2029 by the Defense Department, has taken on a sense of permanence, despite the court case.
The federal government awarded a $292 million contract to a private company to provide members of the Joint Task Force-D.C. with apartments. The numbers have grown as well, ballooning to around 5,000 during the height of the semiquincentennial celebration. As of last week, that number had dropped to about 2,900.
Before the hearing began, several dozen people rallied outside the courthouse to oppose the continuing presence of the military in the city.
David Barrows, a retired office manager and city resident, was dressed in a Trump costume. “It’s easier to boss around the people in Washington, D.C., because we don’t have any representation in either House or Congress. So we’re basically an abused people,” he said. “We pay the highest federal taxes in the land, and we get no representation in both houses. So we’re a cheated people, and we’re scapegoats for Trump.”
He also questioned the premise of the guard's presence: “There's no national emergency here in Washington,” he said.
Jennifer Pace, a longtime resident and former banker, said she suspected the case would continue through the courts.
“But I really want it to move forward so they can just go home,” Pace said. "I’m sure they want to go home, too, because it’s clear they’re bored. They’re just standing around.”
U.S. Capitol Police secure an intersection near the Capitol as activists stop traffic and call for the ouster of President Donald Trump's National Guard deployment in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Protestors near the federal courthouse stop traffic and call for the ouster of President Donald Trump's National Guard deployment in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Protestors near the Capitol stop traffic and call for the ouster of President Donald Trump's National Guard deployment in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Protestors near the federal courthouse stop traffic and call for the ouster of President Donald Trump's National Guard deployment in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Protestors near the federal courthouse stop traffic and call for the ouster of President Donald Trump's National Guard deployment in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Members of the National Guard walk past the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where some water can be seen, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
