Hunch. Pope Leo flies out three and a half weeks after lung surgery on 13 October, which none of the nine earlier trips had to do.
The departure market resolves on the vatican.va page of the journey and his first speech in Montevideo: YES if Pope Leo flies from Rome to Uruguay on 6 November 2026, Rome time. If the flight moves to a later day or the trip is cancelled, it resolves NO, with BBC News and The Independent as backups.
We looked for cases where a pope over 70 went on a foreign trip of eight days or more to three or more countries, under a plan the Vatican published. We found nine such trips, from 1970 to 2026. Seven of them were made by John Paul II. The Vatican’s online list of papal trips starts with Paul VI in 1964.