President Laura Fernández has personally asked Pope Leo XIV to visit Costa Rica in 2027, handing him a letter of invitation during an audience at the Apostolic Palace in Rome. If it happens, it would be the first time a pope has set foot in the country since John Paul II's stop in March 1983. The Vatican hasn't confirmed anything — no date was proposed, and Fernández left the timing entirely to the pontiff.
Why 2027? Costa Rica will be marking two big anniversaries that year: the 203rd anniversary of the declaration of Our Lady of the Angels — the dark-skinned statue known as La Negrita, the country's patron saint — and the 180th anniversary of the constitution that made Catholicism the official state religion. Fernández told Catholic media she invited the pope to come and greet La Negrita, calling it special for Costa Rica to welcome a pope again after more than four decades.
The audience lasted around half an hour, and Fernández came bearing distinctly Costa Rican gifts: a replica of the Virgin of the Angels and bags of coffee from several growing regions — apparently not the first Costa Rican brew the pope has received. She also raised the practical politics: the plight of Nicaraguan migrants, the largest migrant group in Costa Rica, cooperation with the United States on deportation proceedings, and her government's mix of social investment and crackdowns on organised crime, including moves to stop inmates directing violence from inside prisons. She's just back from touring El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison as Costa Rica shifts its own high-risk inmates to the new CACCO facility.
So what does this mean for travellers? If the pope accepts, 2027 would see huge crowds and a festive, pilgrim-heavy atmosphere in and around San José and Cartago — worth planning around, whether you want to be part of it or avoid it. And even without a papal visit, the story spotlights one of Costa Rica's genuine pilgrimages: every August, devotees from every province walk or travel to the Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels in Cartago to honour La Negrita. It's one of Central America's most heartfelt religious events, and an easy half-hour trip from the capital.
For now, everything hangs on a letter and a promise of coordination through the Vatican's Secretariat of State. Fernández's Rome stop was part of a wider trip taking in El Salvador, Colombia and the Ibero-American Summit in Madrid in early November. Whether Leo XIV books the flight remains to be seen — but Costa Ricans, the president says, are already praying for it.
