The key facts

  • Leo XIV became the first pope in almost 40 years to visit Uruguay
  • The final Mass at the cathedral in Florida gathered at least 50,000 faithful
  • On the evening of November 8, the pope arrived in Buenos Aires and was received by President Milei

Farewell to Uruguay in Florida

On Sunday, November 8, 2026, Pope Leo XIV concluded his visit to Uruguay, euronews reports. The final event was a trip to the city of Florida, north of Montevideo, where the pontiff celebrated the local Catholic feast of the Virgin of the Thirty-Three. According to the outlet, at least 50,000 faithful attended the Mass at the cathedral. Leo XIV became the first pope in almost four decades to visit Uruguay — the visit was conceived as a reminder to an increasingly secular country of its Catholic identity.

Address to women and the theme of violence

In his homily, the pope devoted a significant part to the women who passed on the Catholic faith to younger generations in the most secular country in Latin America. “You taught your children to pray, and today they do not do it. You went to Mass together, and now it has been years since they set foot in a church,” he said, urging mothers and grandmothers “never to tire of passing on the faith.” He also called on men to treat their wives with respect, raising the issue of gender-based violence: according to figures cited by euronews, nearly 20,000 femicides have been recorded in Latin America over the past five years, most of them committed by the current or former partners of the victims. In addition, in his homily Leo XIV said he was “deeply saddened” by the attack in Kraków.

Arrival in Argentina and the political context

That same evening, the pope landed in Buenos Aires, where he was greeted at the Casa Rosada by the President of Argentina, Javier Milei. As euronews notes, the visit is not without political tension: the Catholic Church has criticized Milei's austerity measures, which cut social spending, as well as his support for artificial intelligence. Milei himself has staked on cutting social spending in order to restore the economy's health and achieve a budget surplus; he has called social justice an “aberration” equivalent to theft, and the complaints of families who cannot make it to the end of the month because of his program a “huge foolishness.” For Argentine Catholics, the visit is also spiritually significant: Leo XIV is following the path of his predecessor Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentine by origin, who died on Easter Monday 2025.