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Peruvian President José María Alcázar will meet Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on June 18, when he is expected to formally invite the pontiff to visit Peru in November.

Cathedral Basilica of Lima. Credit: Gatodemich, CC BY-SA 4.0

Both the Peruvian bishops’ conference and Alcázar have said the trip is expected to take place that month, with the president stating that it would likely occur between Nov. 10 and 16.

But a papal visit could be complicated by Peru’s fraught political climate and a series of scandals involving members of the country’s hierarchy, where Leo served as a missionary and bishop for nearly three decades.

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Conservative candidate Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of Peruvian autocrat Alberto Fujimori, is favored to win a razor-thin presidential run-off against Roberto Sánchez, a self-proclaimed social Christian, who has claimed to have been influenced by liberation theology and is supported by far-left parties.

Fujimori holds a lead of roughly 30,000 votes over Sánchez in an election that saw more than 18 million votes cast. Though she has not yet been officially declared the winner, she is widely expected to emerge victorious. Electoral authorities have said the final count could take up to a month.

If confirmed, the result would mark

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