Pope Leo XIV Opens Latin American Tour in Secular Uruguay, Weeks After Lung Cancer Surgery

Pope Leo XIV stepped into Montevideo on Friday, three weeks after surgery for lung cancer, and told reporters on the flight over that he felt better than he looked. Asked whether he felt as good as he appeared, he answered, "Maybe better." He credited his recovery to trust in God, good doctors and surgeons, and what he called a healthy lifestyle.

The 71-year-old pontiff had just spent 13 and a half hours in the air from Rome. He had his tumor removed from his right lung on Oct. 13, and this trip, the longest and farthest of his pontificate, runs 12 days across three countries: Uruguay first, then Argentina, then Peru, where he spent two decades as a missionary bishop. He acknowledged that some people had doubted he could manage it. He said he never did, and was convinced from the first day that it had to go forward.

The Vatican estimated that 30,000 people turned out as he rolled into the city in an open-sided popemobile. Crowds lined the route, chanting "Pope Leo, Uruguay is with you!" He kissed babies passed up to him and received the keys to the city from Montevideo's mayor. At Plaza Independencia, on a blustery afternoon, he greeted President Yamandú Orsi and government officials as the wind whipped the Uruguayan and Holy See flags behind him. He then presided over evening vespers at the cathedral, which ended at 9 p.m. local time, 1 a.m. in Rome.

In his Spanish-language remarks to Orsi, Leo praised Uruguay's development while gently recalling its Catholic heritage. His aim, in a three-day visit, is to propose the faith to the country's 3.5 million people as a resource for facing present challenges. He said the state is obliged to care for its people, young and old, in what read as a veiled reference to Uruguay's permissive abortion policies and its 2025 legalization of assisted dying, both contrary to Catholic teaching. Using Vatican terminology, he said everyone shares responsibility to ensure each person can live with dignity, receive needed care, and be accompanied until the natural end of life.

Uruguay is an unusual place to start. Latin America holds roughly 40% of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, yet Uruguay is considered its most secular country, where only a fraction of self-identified Catholics attend Mass regularly. Historian Gerardo Caetano traces this to colonial history: Spain, finding no gold or silver, treated the cattle-ranching land mainly as a buffer against Portuguese Brazil. Montevideo was founded only in the 1720s, about two centuries after Mexico City and Lima, with few priests and no local bishop. "Uruguay was colonized late, and that made Catholicism weaker," Caetano said.

The separation of church and state grew in the 19th century with liberal ideas from European intellectuals, said Luis Bahamondes of the University of Chile. It even extended to renaming holidays, such as "Family Day" and "Tourism Week." Uruguay has since become the first country to legalize recreational marijuana, the second in Latin America to decriminalize abortion, the third in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage, and the first in the region to approve assisted dying over the church's strong opposition.

Reactions along the route were warm but mixed with puzzlement. Mary Fernández, drinking mate by the river, said she still didn't understand why he chose a secular country, but hoped he would leave something positive. Marie Hernández, a 75-year-old retiree and Catholic, said she was struck by the unity among religions. Church officials said enthusiasm surged after Leo's hospitalization, with tickets to his prayer vigil at Centenario Stadium gone in two days. The last pope to visit was St. John Paul II in 1988. Guzmán Carriquiry, former head of the Vatican's commission for Latin America, said the visit seems to be lifting a veil that obscured the Catholic tradition at the country's foundation.

Andrew Chesnut of Virginia Commonwealth University was less sure. Warm welcomes, he said, won't necessarily fill pews, and if the goal is revitalizing Catholicism in the world's most Catholic region, Uruguay has been a lost cause for decades. The tour now moves on to Argentina and Peru.