Pope Leo XIV began an emotionally charged tour of South America on Friday, returning to a continent that helped shape his priesthood just three weeks after undergoing lung cancer surgery.
The 71-year-old head of the Catholic Church will visit Uruguay, Argentina and Peru over 12 days in one of the most intense papal foreign trips in decades, meeting political leaders, prisoners, the poor, as well as old friends.
"I'm very happy to be here," Leo told reporters including AFP on the plane before landing in Uruguay, saying he wanted to bring a "message of hope in today's world."
The leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics said he was "in fairly good shape" following his surgery.
"I know some people were doubtful about this trip taking place," he said, adding: "I had no doubt and was convinced that this trip had to go forward."
Doctors have given him the all-clear to travel, and the Vatican said no special medical measures were necessary beyond the standard care on papal trips.
The Church's first US-born pope, who has repeatedly clashed with US President Donald Trump over the Middle East war, also spoke about voting in this week's US midterm elections.
His mail-in ballot made history as he was the first pope ever to have been known to vote in a political election.
"I'm proud to be an American and to exercise the right" to vote, he said.
The pope has taken on Peruvian citizenship as well as American and spent almost two decades in Peru as a missionary, forming a deep attachment to the continent.
He referred to Peru as "one of my many homes" in his remarks on Friday and said he was looking forward to seeing "old things, new things and most of all the people" there.
Leo begins his trip in Uruguay, Latin America's most secular country -- and one of the wealthiest -- where a tight security operation is in place, with some 5,000 police officers and 1,000 soldiers mobilized.
He will be driven along Montevideo's waterfront promenade in a custom-made popemobile, before meeting left-wing President Yamandu Orsi and receiving the keys to the city.
Cardinal Daniel Sturla, archbishop of Montevideo, told AFP there was "widespread interest in the pope's visit that goes well beyond the confines of the Catholic Church," with tickets for masses in Paysandu and Florida quickly running out.
The liberal nation is at odds with the centuries-old institution on same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia -- which was legalized last year -- and Leo is expected to appeal to protect life as well as traditional family values.
The pope may also talk about mental health, particularly when visiting the Casavalle neighborhood in Montevideo, notorious for high levels of poverty and extreme violence.
He will travel on Sunday to Argentina, the homeland of his predecessor Pope Francis, who disappointed many Argentinians by not returning to visit during his papacy.
On Friday, the pope said he was going to visit Argentina "with great joy," adding that it was the country where Francis "did not manage to go."
Leo's trip is seen as a double homecoming of sorts, US-based Vatican expert Christopher White told AFP.
"History's first Latin American pope, Francis, never returned to his homeland. Leo, a Peruvian citizen, now carries forward that mantle and legacy," said White, author of a book on Pope Leo.
The South America trip culminates in Peru, and Leo's arrival there on Wednesday will be "a moment full of symbolism and emotion," he said.
The country has been gripped by pope fever. In Lima, vendors are selling T-shirts and rosaries with his image on them, while Leo bread is on sale in bakeries. Inmates in a women's prison are crafting dolls in his likeness.
A towering, 14-metre (46-foot) statue of Leo has also been erected in the port city of Callao, which he is to visit.
The trip will take him to the former Inca capital of Cusco and the Amazon rainforest, but the pope will also revisit his former life as Robert Francis Prevost, from a supper with priests from his old diocese of Chiclayo to a private visit to a chapel he helped rebuild.