Pope Leo
Huge crowds greeted Leo as he arrived in the capital, Montevideo, on Friday. The Vatican estimates that 30,000 people came to see him pass and attend his first event.
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Despite a long journey from Rome, the 71-year-old pontiff appeared in great shape when he arrived at Plaza Independencia for the official welcome and speech, attended by Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi and government officials.
In his speech to Orsi, delivered in Spanish, Leo praised Uruguay’s development, including its “remarkable” transition to clean energy. He also highlighted the mental health issues plaguing the country and pushed for universal health care.
The pope commented on the country’s suicide rate, the highest in Latin America, while also reflecting on his own challenges in the fight against lung cancer and the “many men and women who do not have the means” to obtain a rapid diagnosis. The experience convinced him that health care should be “accessible to everyone,” he said.
The pope also recalled that the state must take care of its people, young and old – a veiled reference to Uruguay’s abortion policy, decriminalized in 2012, and the legalization of medical assistance in dying in 2025, both of which go against Catholic teaching.
“It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that every person can live with dignity, receive the care they need and be supported until the natural end of their life,” Leo said.
Touring Latin America in 12 days
The head of the Roman Catholic Church landed in Montevideo on Friday after a 13-hour flight, telling reporters he was feeling “pretty good.”
“I know some people doubted that this trip would happen,” Leo told reporters aboard the papal plane. “I had no doubt and I was convinced that this trip had to happen. And I’m very happy to say, praise the Lord and thanks to wonderful medical assistance, I’m here today, I think in pretty good shape.”
During his trip, the pope is expected to visit Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, in one of the most intense papal foreign trips in decades.
His packed three-day itinerary in Uruguay, the region’s least Catholic and most secular country, will include a visit to a neighborhood with high gang violence, a Mass in Paysandu, about 375 kilometers (230 miles) from Montevideo, and another Mass in the Florida city, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the capital.
Cardinal Daniel Sturla, archbishop of Montevideo, told the AFP news agency that there was “widespread interest in the pope’s visit that extends well beyond the confines of the Catholic Church,” with tickets for masses in Paysandu and Florida quickly selling out.
The regional trip is a return trip of sorts for Leo, as it will end in Peru on November 17, where he served for nearly two decades as a missionary, forming a deep attachment to the continent.
The trip will take the pope to the ancient Inca capital of Cusco and the Amazon rainforest, and he will also revisit his former diocese of Chiclayo for a private tour of a chapel he helped rebuild.
Leo said Wednesday he was looking forward to returning to an area “that is so dear to me.”
The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics said he hoped the trip would “strengthen faith, renew hope and rekindle the fire of charity” in the countries he visits, which face rising inequality and violence, as well as a decline in the number of Catholic faithful.
Although he underwent an operation Oct. 13 to remove a cancerous tumor, doctors gave him the green light to travel, and the Vatican said no special medical measures were needed beyond standard care during papal trips.
“His stamina is fantastic. The way he sings is incredible. And you can only sing if your lungs are really strong,” said Maria Montserrat Alvarado, the Vatican’s new communications chief. She noted that Leo had exceeded the 14-day recovery period doctors required after his surgery and was eager to get back on the road.
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