The 71-year-old pontiff is visiting three countries despite undergoing surgery to remove a tumour last month.
Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Uruguay as he begins a 12-day tour of South America, three weeks after undergoing lung cancer surgery that had put the entire trip into question.
Huge crowds greeted Leo as he pulled into the capital, Montevideo, on Friday. The Vatican estimated 30,000 people had turned out to watch him go by and attend his first event.
Despite a long trip from Rome, the 71-year-old pontiff seemed in fine form as he arrived at the Plaza Independencia for the formal welcome and speech, attended by Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi and government officials.
In his remarks to Orsi, delivered in Spanish, Leo praised Uruguay’s development, including its “remarkable” transition to clean energy. He also highlighted the mental health challenges plaguing the country and encouraged universal healthcare.
The pope also reminded that the state should care for its people, young and old – a veiled reference to Uruguay’s abortion policy, which was decriminalised in 2012, and the 2025 legalisation of assisted dying, both of which run counter to Catholic teaching.
“It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that each person can live with dignity, receive the care they need, and be accompanied until the natural end of his or her life,” Leo said.
Around Latin America in 12 days
The head of the Roman Catholic Church touched down in Montevideo on Friday after a 13-hour flight, telling reporters he feels “fairly good”.
“I know some people were doubtful about this trip taking place,” Leo told reporters on board the papal plane. “I had no doubt and was convinced that this trip had to go forward. And I am very happy to say, praise the Lord and thanks to wonderful medical assistance, I’m here today, I think in fairly good shape.”
On his trip, the pope is scheduled 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 neighbourhood with heavy gang violence, a mass in Paysandu, about 375 kilometres (230 miles) from Montevideo, and another mass in the city of Florida, about 100km (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 goes well beyond the confines of the Catholic Church”, with tickets for masses in Paysandu and Florida quickly running out.
The trip will take the pope to the former Inca capital of Cusco and the Amazon rainforest, and he will also revisit his old diocese of Chiclayo for a private visit to a chapel he helped rebuild.
Leo said on Wednesday that he was looking forward to returning to a region “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 is visiting, which face rising inequality and violence, as well as a decline in Catholic followers.
Despite undergoing an operation on October 13 to remove a cancerous tumour, doctors have given him the all-clear to travel, and the Vatican said no special medical measures were necessary beyond the standard care on papal trips.
“His stamina is fantastic. The way that he’s singing 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 passed the 14-day convalescence period required by doctors after his surgery and was eager to get on the road.