Pope Leo XIV will begin his 12-day, 19,000-mile journey through Latin America on Nov. 6 in Uruguay. He is only the second pope to visit the country, after St. John Paul II, who came for two days in 1987 and for four days in 1988.
Uruguay is one of the most secularized countries in Latin America and has a population of 3.4 million people; roughly two million live in Montevideo, the capital city, where Pope Leo will reside at the Vatican embassy during his less than 48-hour visit.
Spanish Franciscan and Jesuit missionaries first brought the Gospel to this land in the 1600s. Today, around 38 percent of the population is Catholic and 44 percent is Christian, while over 50 percent of Uruguayans profess no religion. Indeed, the percentage of Catholics has fallen from 60 percent in 1997. The Vatican’s statistics for the period 1980 to 2024 show 41,673 baptisms in 1980 and only 11,066 in 2024. The most recent church data reveals that in 2025, only 2,200 of the 30,000 newborns were baptized. The same data shows there were 8,673 Catholic marriages in 1980 and only 1,649 in 2024.
The country’s bishops reflected on this decline in their two most recent ad limina visits. After their November 2017 visit with Pope Francis, Bishop Heriberto Bodeant told Vatican News that “Pope Francis knows deeply our country and the Uruguayan church” and is very aware of the reality the Catholic Church faces after more than a century of secularized culture when “religion is banned in public schools, religious ignorance is frequent, the kerygma must be permanently announced.” But Francis encouraged them, he said, and after meeting him “we felt our hearts burning, we are ready to go on the road and to continue inviting all our people to live a personal encounter with Jesus Christ in His Church.”
Last September, the Uruguayan bishops made their ad limina visit to Pope Leo, and afterward Bishop Arturo Fajardo of the Diocese of Salto told Vatican News that evangelization is one of the principal challenges facing the church in “the most secularized country in Latin America.” As pastor to the country’s geographically largest diocese, he emphasized that secularization does not necessarily eliminate the search for religion. On the contrary, he believes the decline of ideologies and questions about the meaning of existence can open new possibilities for evangelization. In this context, he said, the value of popular piety, including Marian devotions and expressions of faith found in different regions of Uruguay, should be valued, promoted and accompanied by formation.
Indeed, we can expect Pope Leo to zero in on this reality. The motto chosen for his visit is “Les Anuncio Una Gran Alegria” (“I Bring You News of Great Joy”), words taken from the angel’s announcement to the shepherds in Bethlehem (Lk 2:10). It is the message he wants to convey to everyone in this country.
The logo, as the Vatican explains, shows Christ crucified and risen, flanked by Pope Leo and Our Lady of the Thirty-Three, the patroness of Uruguay. Above them is the sun, inspired by the “Sun of May,” a symbol of Uruguay’s national identity, while the colour blue evokes the national flag.
Leo’s Itinerary
Pope Leo will depart from Rome at 7 a.m. on Friday and, after an over 13-hour flight, will arrive at Montevideo’s Carrasco International Airport at 4:30 p.m. (local time), where he will be given an official welcome by the president of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, who hails from the center-left political party—unlike the far-right presidents of Argentina and Peru.
He will then be driven to the Plaza Independencia, the main public square in Montevideo, for a welcome ceremony and will address the country’s authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps.
After making a courtesy visit to the house of government, he will go to the nearby Metropolitan Basilica Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and Saints Philip and James, where he will preside at vespers with the bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, and seminarians. He will then retire for the evening at the nunciature.
On Saturday morning, Nov. 7, he will take a plane to Paysandú, a cultural and economic hub in the west of the country on the banks of the Uruguay River and the border with Argentina. Leo is the first pope to come here and will celebrate Mass in the main park, “Parque Paris Londres”; many Argentinians are expected to join the Uruguayans for this.
That afternoon, after returning to Montevideo, Leo will meet the Augustinians working in the country and later visit a home for elderly priests. The missionary pope will then go to the Borro neighborhood on the city’s north side to meet with the social community of Casavalle at the parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The parish provides refuge to young people hit by drug trafficking and violence and engages in projects such as building homes, job creation and addiction rehabilitation. According to official data, more than 46 percent of the 98 homicides registered in Montevideo up to September 2026 occurred in Borro and surrounding neighborhoods. People bring the wounded to the parish church because it is the furthest point ambulances travel to.
According to official data, Uruguay’s poverty rate fell to 14.8 percent in the first half of 2026, a decline of 2.9 percentage points from the same period last year.
Uruguay’s economy in 2026 is experiencing moderate growth, slowed down by a local agricultural drought, global uncertainties and commodity price shocks. Unemployment is historically low, but as throughout Latin America, many people work in the gig economy. While Uruguay maintains strong macroeconomic conditions, it faces a dual drug challenge: its growing role as an international transit and export hub for cocaine heading to Europe and Africa, and a rise in domestic cocaine consumption and localized violence.
After the visit to Casavalle, Leo will then drive to the Jesuit-run Catholic University of Uruguay, a private university founded in 1985 (but with origins dating back to the 1870s), for a meeting with professors and students. He will be welcomed by Cardinal Daniel Sturla, the university’s grand chancellor, and its rector, Julio Fernández Techera, S.J.
On Saturday evening, Pope Leo will preside over the prayer vigil at the Centenary Stadium, built with a capacity of 60,000 to host the first FIFA World Cup Championship in 1930, in which Uruguay defeated Argentina 4–2 in the final.
On Sunday morning, Nov. 8, Pope Leo will conclude his visit to Uruguay by driving to the city of Florida, about 56 miles from Montevideo in the south-central part of the country, to celebrate Mass at Plaza Asamblea in front of the Cathedral Basilica of Florida. The basilica is home to the national shrine of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three. The small Marian image was venerated by the Thirty-Three Orientals, the revolutionary group that started the insurrection against Brazil in April 1825 that culminated in the foundation of modern Uruguay.
Uruguay’s Christian roots
The constitution of 1830 made Catholicism the state religion. Uruguay established diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1856. In 1878, Montevideo was elevated to a diocese, and in 1897, to an archdiocese. Missionaries followed the “reduction pattern” of the Jesuits in northern Argentina by gathering the indigenous people into communities, training them in farming, breeding livestock and other skills while forming them in the Catholic faith. The constitution of 1917, however, declared the separation of church and state.
Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour, the former secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and afterward Uruguay’s ambassador to the Holy See, speaking to Vatican Media on the eve of the pope’s visit, asserted that it is no coincidence the pope chose to start his Latin American visit in Uruguay, because it is a land whose Catholic tradition is rooted in the very origins of the nation. He thinks the pope’s visit can help Uruguayans “reconnect” with the Christian roots of their history and discover the faith’s significance for their life today. “The church is the midwife of the nation,” he remarked, referring to “the contribution of Catholic tradition to Uruguay’s historical development, from the first Franciscans in the 1600s to José Gervasio Artigas and the [Thirty-Three] leaders of the independence movement in 1825.”
According to Mr. Carriquiry, the history of the small image Our Lady of the Thirty-Three is linked to the country’s struggle for independence; it accompanied the leaders of that struggle and was present during the events of 1825 and the declaration of independence. He thinks the celebration in Florida could therefore become a particularly important moment for rediscovering that heritage and restoring it to the people’s consciousness. “It will evoke a history in which faith and the building of the nation were deeply intertwined, and will also be an invitation to look ahead and ask how that heritage can speak once again to the hearts of new generations,” he said.
In his view, Pope Leo’s visit to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru offers an opportunity to renew hope and strengthen the bonds between faith and people’s daily lives. Each country faces its own challenges, but all share the need to proclaim the Gospel in changing societies.
On Sunday afternoon, Nov. 8, a farewell ceremony will be held at Carrasco International Airport, at which the country’s president will bid Pope Leo farewell before he boards the plane for the one-hour flight to Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.
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