Pope ends Uruguay visit ahead of potentially fraught meeting in Argentina

The Pope has wrapped up his visit to Uruguay by marking an important Catholic feast day that is tied to the country’s independence, capping his effort to draw attention to the role the church played in the founding of Latin America’s most secular country.

Leo travelled to the city of Florida, north of Montevideo, on Sunday before heading to Argentina for the second leg of his three-nation tour of South America. It is expected to be the most politically delicate, given the Catholic Church’s sharp criticism of the austerity programme of libertarian President Javier Milei.

For his final event in Uruguay, Leo was commemorating the feast of the Virgin of the Thirty-three. Every year, thousands of pilgrims flock to Florida on the second Sunday of November to pray before the small wooden icon of the Virgin Mary housed there.

According to tradition, 33 independence patriots acquired the Guarani statue and had it with them when independence was declared from the Brazilian empire in Florida on August 25, 1825.

Leo became the first Pope in nearly four decades to visit Uruguay, in hopes of reminding its people that the Catholic Church is part of their very identity as a nation – even if in subsequent decades the country went on a deeply secular, and at times anticlerical, route.

Thousands of people poured into Florida’s main square on Sunday ahead of the Mass under brilliant blue skies, some walking several miles to reach the site.

Leo was hoping to leave a parting message before opening the second leg of his South American trip, which he went ahead with despite having undergone surgery on October 13 to remove a cancerous tumour from his lung.

The final stop is in Peru, his second homeland.

Leo, 71, has appeared in fine form at his events, singing loudly, bounding up stairs and gamely greeting the crowds in his popemobile. He has not cut any events short, including those that have kept him out until past midnight Rome time.

In Buenos Aires, Mr Milei is due to greet Leo at the airport and the two men will then appear together for the traditional welcome ceremony and exchange of speeches.

The encounter could be tense, given the Catholic Church’s criticism of Mr Milei’s austerity measures that have slashed social spending, and his embrace of artificial intelligence.

Mr 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 cannot make it to the end of the month.

Leo, who took his name from the 19th-century pope whose encyclical on labour laid the foundation of Catholic social teaching, has made the poor and vulnerable a focus of his papacy, carrying on the legacy of his Argentine predecessor, Pope Francis.

Posters reading “At last, a Lion who unites” appeared across Buenos Aires this weekend, a jab playing on the Pope’s name in Spanish – Leon, or lion – and the lion imagery Mr Milei often uses to portray himself on social media.