QUITO, Ecuador—Ever since Mario Jose Bergoglio became Pope Francis in 2013, the region’s political elite have beaten a path to the Vatican. Cuba’s Raul Castro, Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos and Brazil’s Dilma Roussef have all been granted audiences. Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez has become a regular at the Holy See, visiting her countryman and one-time foe five times.
In the process, Latin America’s first pope has earned a reputation as an effective deal-maker. He’s credited with brokering the US-Cuba rapprochement, given his blessing to peace talks in Colombia, and has been urged to intercede on behalf of political prisoners in Venezuela.
Starting on Sunday, however, it would be Francis, the 78-year-old spiritual leader, who would be present in South America.
The pope kicked off an eight-day trip in Ecuador that would also take him to Bolivia and Paraguay.
While he traveled to Brazil in 2013 for World Youth Day, that trip had been previously scheduled by Pope Benedict XVI. In that sense, Francis hand-picked Ecuador for his Latin American homecoming, said Archbishop Fausto Gabriel Travez of Quito, president of the Episcopal Conference.
“This is the first time a pope will be addressing a crowd in Latin America in his own and their own language,” he told the Miami Herald. “That’s a blessing for Ecuador.”
It’s also the beginning of a series of trips in the Western Hemisphere. The pope will travel to Cuba and the US in September and is planning to visit Chile, Uruguay and Argentina in 2016.
The visit is a much-needed boost in a region where Catholicism has been slipping. According to a recent Pew study, 84 percent of all Latin Americans were raised Catholic but only 69 percent are practicing, as Protestant faiths make inroads.
In Ecuador 79 percent consider themselves Catholic—down from 95 percent in 1970, according to the study. But there has been a Francis effect, Travez said, as more people are packing the pews.
“Pope Francis has definitely created excitement in the community,” he said.
The pope can expect a rock-star welcome. Hotels in Paraguay have been booked for weeks amid the crush of Argentines flowing across the border to see their hometown hero. In chilly Quito, people were preparing to sleep overnight in the park where Francis will hold Mass on Tuesday.
The trip takes him to three of South America’s poorest countries. In a video message, Francis said he wanted to deliver the gospel to those most in need, including “the elderly, the sick, the imprisoned, the poor, [and] those who are victims of this throwaway culture.”
In that spirit, Francis will be visiting a nursing home in Ecuador, a pediatric hospital in Paraguay and Bolivia’s most violent jail, Palmasola in Santa Cruz.
While Catholic authorities say the trip is strictly religious, Francis is unlikely to escape regional politics.
In Paraguay he’s expected to get drawn into the debate surrounding a 10-year-old girl who was denied an abortion after allegedly being raped by her stepfather. While the case has outraged health advocates, most believe that staunchly Catholic Paraguay will not give into secular demands.
Government critics are also accusing the Horacio Cartes administration of trying to hide the nation’s problems from their illustrious visitor.
“We have to show our reality: The country lacks work, health care, homes and education,” Eladio Flecha, the secretary of the Pyahura Paraguay political party, told ABC Color newspaper. “It’s very important that we show the pope these things.”
In Bolivia Francis can expect a warm welcome. As a bishop and cardinal in Buenos Aires, he dedicated much of his service to undocumented migrants—many of whom were from the poor neighboring country.
Even so, miners and some transportation workers have threatened to strike while Francis is in town to draw attention to their plight. Families of soldiers who were jailed after a 2014 uprising have also said they will try to petition the pope for their release.
President Evo Morales asked the groups not to “blackmail” the government.
“When we have international visitors, like Pope Francis, our beloved Bolivia is in the world’s eyes,” he said. “It’s our obligation to show hospitality and unity.”
In Ecuador, where four weeks of antigovernment protests have tensions running high, Francis has often been at the center of the battle.
On Thursday President Rafael Correa held a mass rally to keep antigovernment demonstrators from approaching the presidential palace. Surrounded by supporters, he took on those who have criticized his administration for plastering the city with quotes from Francis that reference social justice and equality.
(Correa is trying to push an unpopular inheritance tax that he says will help redistribute wealth.) TNS