From Uruguay, Pope Leo travels today to neighboring Argentina, the homeland of Pope Francis, who never returned there after his election on March 13, 2013. When Pope Leo’s plane touches down at 4.30 p.m. at “Areoparque Jorge Newbery” airport, the bells of all the churches of Buenos Aires will peal out for 10 minutes to welcome him to Argentina.

In fact, the church’s welcome started some days earlier at the request of the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Garcia Cuerva. He asked that a prayer be said at all Masses in the archdiocese from Nov. 3 to Nov. 11 for the papal visit and that from Nov. 5 to 12 the flags of Argentina and the Vatican be exhibited on all ecclesiastical buildings and institutions. The government too is showing its welcome by declaring the duration of his stay as a partial public holiday.

Leo XIV is only the second pope to visit this country after John Paul II who came here twice: first in 1982 in the midst of the war with England over the Malvinas (Falkland) islands, and again in 1987 for World Youth Day.

Argentina is the second largest country in Latin America after Brazil. It has a population of 46 million people, the majority of whom (around 58 percent) profess to be Catholic. About 22-23 million are of Italian origin, and between 13 and 20 million are Spanish/Criollo origin depending on whether one takes account of full or partial ancestry.

The Catholic community is served by 146 bishops, 5,137 priests, 1,268 permanent deacons, 507 religious men who are not priests, and 5,921 women religious, according to the Vatican statistics for 2024. However, the same data reveals a decline in the administration of the sacraments as in many other countries; it reports that while there were 625,229 baptisms in 1980, by 2024 the baptisms totaled 330,171. Likewise weddings in church have decreased more dramatically from 153,376 in 1980 to 20,326 in 2024. 

“Bienvenidos todos. Vayan y anuncien” is the motto in Spanish chosen for the visit, meaning “Welcome everyone. Go and proclaim.” It is reminiscent of Pope Francis’ famous words at the World Youth Day in Lisbon—“Todos, todos, todos.” The logo shows a wreath of small, stylized human figures in shades of Argentine sky blue, representing a society where everyone is welcomed and no one is excluded, with Christ at the center.

Leo will arrive in a country that is politically unstable. Argentina has had 11 presidents since the end of military rule on Dec. 10, 1983; Javier Milei is the 12th. This instability is today reflected in the widespread political polarization and increasing inequalities. While a sector of the population is benefiting from the libertarian economic policies of President Milei’s right-wing government, a great many are not. 

At the beginning of the 1900s, Argentina was one of the top 10 richest countries in the world, but today, notwithstanding its immense natural resources of gas and oil as well as its high level agriculture, 32.3 percent of the population (15.4 million people) are living in poverty in the first half of 2026, according to official data from the national statistics agency INDEC. Indeed, some two million Argentinians have fallen into poverty since the end of 2025. Today, roughly 9.4 million people live below the poverty line, while 45 percent of children under the age of 15 live in poverty. Unemployment has risen to 7.9 percent in the second quarter of this year. The Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) predicts that the poverty rate could climb to 35 percent by the end of 2026. 

The Catholic Church in Argentina is very involved in efforts to ease the suffering and help the growing number of poor people, as well as advocating publicly for change. The church still has deep roots among the people, even if the number of Catholics has declined in the last 60 years according to data from the University of Buenos Aires that reports a decline from 90 percent in 1960 to 57.7 percent in 2026, while the non-religious grew to 22.4 percent and Evangelical Christianity to 17.4 percent. This data, however, differs from statistics given by the Vatican according to which 93 percent of the population was baptized Catholic in 1980 and 91.7 percent in 2024. Clearly the question of the transmission of the faith is a major challenge for the church here as elsewhere.

Pope Leo and Argentina

As prior-general of the Augustinians, Robert Francis Prevost visited Argentina at least four times between 2001 and 2013. Now he comes as pope and will spend just over three days here from the evening of Nov. 8 to early afternoon of Nov. 11. He will reside at the nunciature (Vatican embassy) in Buenos Aires, the capital city where Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the papal legate for Pius XI, stayed when he came for the Eucharistic Congress in 1934, and where John Paul II also resided when he visited.

After being welcomed at the airport by President Milei and a guard of honor, Pope Leo will be driven from there to the Monument to General San Martín and the Armies of Independence in the Plaza San Martín in Buenos Aires. He will then go to the “Casa Rosada”—the presidential palace—for another welcome ceremony, followed by a private meeting with President Milei, 53, a right-wing economist who, before his election, denounced Pope Francis as a communist and labeled the social doctrine of the church as “a robbery.”  

After their private conversation, Pope Leo will address a gathering of the country’s authorities, representatives of civil society and the diplomatic corps at the “Palacio Libertad” (Freedom Palace”). His speech, following words of welcome from the president, will be transmitted nationwide and closely scrutinised in this highly polarized society. 

On the eve of his visit La Nacion, the country’s main newspaper, asked Emilce Cuda, the Argentine theologian and secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America who knows the pope well, what message she expected Leo to deliver? Her response: “Leo XIV’s message, just as Francis’s would have been…is always a message of conciliation and reconciliation…Reconciliation is the goal of preaching and of Catholic ethics. Leo XIV has repeated this many times. He is very clear that he must seek reconciliation.”

After delivering his speech at the Palacio Libertad, Leo will drive to the nunciature, where he will have dinner and rest after a long day.

On Monday, November 9, Pope Leo will drive to the city of Claypole, about 19 miles south of Buenos Aires, to visit the Don Orione Cottolengo center, founded by the Italian priest in 1935, that today cares here for 410 persons with intellectual and physical disabilities. 

His visit comes at a time when President Milei’s government had proposed, in the budget discussion for 2027, to make the support system for people with disabilities more flexible—a reform that patients, advocacy groups and the opposition denounce as in reality a budget cut. The Catholic Church too has contested this proposal and asserted in a document last September that “In the face of fragility, the state’s response must not be reduced to a mathematical equation.” Leo is expected to emphasize the need to care for the poor and the discarded people during his visit here. 

After visiting the Cottolengo center, Pope Leo will return to Buenos Aires to celebrate Mass at the Monumento de los Espanoles, in the city center. The monument was a donation by the Spanish community in celebration of the centenary of the Revolution of May 1810, which marked the start of Argentina’s independence from Spain. It was inaugurated in 1927 and seven years later the Mass closing the International Eucharistic Congress was celebrated here in 1934. It was presided over by the papal delegate, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII, and attended by one million people. John Paul II also celebrated Mass here for a large crowd. An even bigger crowd is expected for Leo’s Mass on Nov. 9.

That afternoon, Leo will travel to the Catholic University of Argentina in Buenos Aires for a meeting with the world of labor—including entrepreneurs, business people as well as representatives of unions and of the popular movements. Afterwards, at the Palacio San Martin, he will greet the leaders of the country’s Christian communities and other religious traditions, including from the Jewish and Muslim communities who live in peace here, as Pope Francis showed when he took a rabbi and a Muslim leader from Argentina with him on his visit to the Holy Land in May 2014. 

From there, Leo will go to the Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity for the celebration of vespers with the bishops and synodal teams of Argentina. There also he will pay a special tribute to Pope Francis who so often celebrated Mass and preached in this church, and lived in a small apartment in the next door curial offices. That same evening, Leo will have dinner with the country’s bishops at the archbishop’s residence.

On Tuesday, Nov. 10, Leo will take a one-hour flight to Cordoba, Argentina’s second largest city, and site of the famous Manzana Jesuítica (Jesuit Block), a 17th-century complex that includes colonial churches and the National University of Córdoba, the oldest university in the country, founded in 1613 (with origins as a Jesuit college around 1610). 

Cordoba is known as “La Docta” (“the learned city”) for its university tradition and also for the presence of the Jesuits who left a mark on its cultural and religious life. Leo will be welcomed by the local authorities and the city’s archbishop, Cardinal Angelo Rossi, S.J., who participated in the 2025 conclave that elected him.

Soon after his arrival, the Augustinian pope will celebrate Mass in the grounds of the Military Aviation School, and in the afternoon he will meet the bishops, priests, women and men religious, seminarians and pastoral workers in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption. He is likely to recall the many saints who gave witness to Christ here, and he may also recall that Pope Francis spent 19 months in exile here before he was nominated bishop by John Paul II.

In the evening, on his return to Buenos Aires, Leo will participate in a youth vigil at the Monumento de los Espanoles, which is expected to draw a very large crowd.

On his last day in Argentina, Nov. 11, the missionary pope will visit inmates in the city’s Federal Prison Complex. Afterwards Leo will travel 42 miles by car to the city of Lujan, home to the 16th century terracotta image of Our of Lady that attracts some 7 million pilgrims a year, and to which Pope Francis was greatly devoted, and on whose feast day, May 8, Robert Francis Prevost was elected pope. John Paul II also came here in 1982. 

As prior general, Robert Prevost came here too on an Augustian pilgrimage in 2007; the local archbishop, Monsignor Jorge Eduardo Scheinig, said he met him then. 

Leo XIV will conclude his apostolic visit to Argentina by celebrating a Mass in the piazza in front of the Luján basilica. Some two million people are expected to attend, including young people who have recovered from drug addiction as well as workers from the “informal economy” and the villas (informal settlements). 

In an open letter published on the official website for the visit, the archbishop of Mercedes-Luján, Monsignor Jorge Eduardo Scheinig, recalled that Luján, “the city of Mary, is accustomed to welcoming countless pilgrims” and emphasized that “the House of the Virgin is the home of our people.”

“A great many of us will gather: children, young people, adults, the elderly, people from every corner of the country, and also from neighboring countries. We will include laypeople, religious sisters, priests, and bishops. The poor, the sick, and those facing difficult circumstances will be present. Also those who believe and those whose faith is weak; those who are searching, those who come with questions, and those who simply want to draw closer. We will all be there,” said the bishop.

Leo, the pope of the Americas, is expected to deliver a strong social message here, to the church and to the country. 

After the celebration, Leo will be taken by car to Ezeiza, the main international airport, where President Milei bid him farewell before he boards the Argentine airline that will take him to Peru, the land where he spent some 20 years as a missionary, including eight as bishop, and which has a very special place in his heart. He will remain there for the remainder of this, his sixth foreign journey as pope. 

Gerard O’Connell is America’s senior Vatican correspondent and author of The Election of Pope Francis: An Inside Story of the Conclave That Changed History. He has been covering the Vatican since 1985.