Pope Leo XIV begins this Friday, the 6th, a trip through three Latin American countries, three weeks after undergoing surgery to treat a lung cancer. The first stop will be Uruguay, considered the most secular and least Catholic country in the region, which has not hosted a pope since 1988. The itinerary, the longest and farthest-reaching of his pontificate, also includes Argentina and Peru.
After a thirteen-and-a-half-hour flight from Rome, Leo XIV, 71, is expected to arrive in Montevideo for a three-day visit. The schedule includes a meeting with President Yamandú Orsi, a visit to a neighborhood affected by gang violence, and Masses in Paysandú and Florida, inland cities.
The trip had been cast into doubt by the October 13 surgery. According to María Montserrat Alvarado, the Vatican’s new head of communications, the pope has already completed the 14 days of convalescence prescribed by doctors. “His physical resilience is fantastic,” she said. She added that the pontiff will have medical assistance during the flight.
Uruguay, with 3.5 million inhabitants, is a peculiar case in Latin America, a region that houses about 40% of the 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. Although Catholic heritage dates back to Spanish colonization, only a portion of Uruguayans who identify as Catholic attend Mass regularly.
The country was the first in the world to legalize recreational marijuana, the second in Latin America to decriminalize abortion, and the third in the Americas to recognize same-sex marriage. Recently, it also became the first in the region to approve a law on medically assisted death, despite opposition from the Catholic Church.
It is expected that Leo XIV will reaffirm the Church’s position against abortion and euthanasia, by defending human dignity at all stages of life. On Sunday, the 8th, he will take part in Florida in the celebrations of the Virgin of the Thirty-Three, a religious image associated with Uruguay’s independence from the Brazilian Empire, proclaimed in 1825.
The visit has aroused enthusiasm among Uruguayans, with reports that tickets for a prayer vigil at the Centenario Stadium in Montevideo sold out in two days. Guzmán Carriquiry, the former head of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, assesses that the pope’s presence could revive the Catholic roots of the country.
Andrew Chesnut, a Catholicism expert at Virginia Commonwealth University, weighs in that the enthusiasm will not necessarily translate into higher church attendance. “If the broader objective is to try to revitalize Catholicism in the planet’s most Catholic region, Uruguay is practically a lost cause,” he said.
The pope will also visit Argentina and Peru, where he served as a missionary and bishop for two decades.
