VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis will visit Chile and Peru in 2018, the Vatican announced Monday.

The Holy See said Francis will visit Chile from Jan. 15 to 18, then head to Peru, where he’ll stay until Jan. 21. The cities on the Argentine-born pontiff’s itinerary include Santiago, Temuco and Iquique in Chile and Lima, Puerto Maldonado and Trujillo in Peru, with details of his schedule to be announced at a later date, according to the Vatican.

The Holy See said Francis had accepted invitations from the respective heads of state and local bishops.

Francis is scheduled to visit another South American country, Colombia, in early September 2017. But a hoped-for trip to South Sudan this year has been called off, and planning is behind schedule for a trip to India, raising doubts it will come off in 2017, said Vatican spokesman Greg Burke.

In his voyage in January — summertime in Chile and Peru — Francis will be seeing flocks of faithful where the Vatican’s handling of sex abuse cases has fueled bitter criticism.

In Peru, victims of a charismatic Catholic lay-leader-turned-sexual predator have complained of years of delay in handling the case revolving around the Peru-based organization Sodalitium Christianae Vitae. The organization was one of several conservative groups formed as a reaction to the left-leaning liberation theology influencing Latin America church circles a few decades ago. Victims first complained to the Lima diocese in 2011 about Luis Fernando Figari, who founded the lay movement.

In Chile, local authorities for years refused to believe those who said they had been abused by a charismatic priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, who eventually was punished by the Vatican in 2011, when he was ordered to live a life a penance and prayer for his crimes.

Francis has faced criticism there for appointing a bishop accused by Karadima’s victims of having known about the abuse and done nothing.