Having left Rome for Santiago de Chile on Monday, January 15, 2018 on Alitalia’s flight B777, Pope Francis boarded a Latam company plane, flight B767 from Lima, Peru, for his return trip to Rome on Sunday, January 21, at 7:10 pm (1:10 am Rome time).
At the end of this 22nd international trip, which took him to Latin America for the fifth time, the Holy Father is expected to land in Rome’s Ciampino airport at 2:15 pm today, Monday, January 22.
The Pontiff left the capital after presiding over Sunday Mass in Lima’s Las Palmas airbase, which was attended by more than 1.3 million people, including the President of the Republic, Pedro Pablo Kaczynski, and his wife, Nancy Lange, who preceded the Holy Father to the airport, where they had a brief conversation.
At the end of the Mass, Pope Francis also greeted seven representatives of several non-Catholic, Christian Confessions.
An orchestra and children’s choir were on hand at the airport to bid the Pope farewell. The Latam airlines plane was adorned with the Pope’s coat-of-arms and the hashtag ElVueloDeFrancisco [Pope Francis’ Flight].
Once on board, the Pontiff addressed a message to President Kaczynzki, expressing his “profound gratitude” to the President, to the Government and to the “beloved people of Peru” for their “warm reception” and “generous hospitality.” Pope Francis assured them of his prayers and invoked upon the country “the blessings of Almighty God.
