Pope Leo ends Uruguay visit with tribute to women, heads to Argentina

Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his visit to Uruguay on Sunday. At his final event in the country, he praised the women who have passed the Catholic faith on to younger generations, while also highlighting the role the church has played since the founding of Latin America’s most secular country.

“You taught your children to pray, and today they no longer do so. You used to attend Mass together, and it has been years since they entered a church,” the Pope said. But he urged them not to despair.

“Mothers and grandmothers: never tire of passing on the faith!” he said.

For his final event in the country, he travelled to the city of Florida, north of Montevideo, to mark an important local Catholic feast day, of the Virgin of the Thirty-three.

Paying homage to the women who passed on the Catholic faith, he also raised awareness about gender-based violence, calling on men to treat their wives with respect.

His homily addressed a prominent issue in Latin America: over the last five years, the region recorded nearly 20,000 femicides, most of them committed by the victim’s current or former partner.

Pope Leo became the first pope in nearly four decades to visit Uruguay, in hopes of reminding the increasingly secular nation of its Catholic identity.

“We must live our faith with courage, not be afraid to say: I am a Christian, I am a Catholic, I believe in Jesus Christ,” the Pope said in front of at least 50,000 worshippers gathered outside the Cathedral of Florida.

“The people of Uruguay are capable of great things,” he added, “what we have received and offer freely through the grace of God multiplies, opens up horizons and enriches our lives, giving them new meaning.”

Tens of thousands of people packed Florida’s main square for the Mass under brilliant blue skies, some walking for several kilometres to reach the site. The city has a population of about 40,000.

In his homily the Holy Father also spoke about the attack in Krakow, saying he was “deeply saddened”.

After Uruguay, the pope landed in Buenos Aires on Sunday evening, where he received a welcome at the Casa Rosada from the Argentine president, Javier Milei.

The visit is not without political controversy. The Catholic Church has criticised Milei’s austerity measures that have slashed social spending, and his embrace of artificial intelligence.

Milei has staked his presidency on cutting social spending to overhaul Argentina’s troubled economy and deliver a long-elusive budget surplus.

He has called social justice “an aberration” that amounts to stealing, and mocked as “huge stupidity” the increasingly common complaint in Argentina that families squeezed by his austerity programme can’t make it to the end of the month.

For Argentine Catholics, though, the visit is hugely important in a spiritual sense, since it sees Leo reconnecting with the path of his predecessor Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Argentine by birth, who died on Easter Monday 2025.