Pope Leo Calls Uruguay to Evangelize With Courage
At his first Mass in the Americas he honored Blessed Jacinto Vera, defended life from conception, and told tens of thousands Christ rejects mediocrity.
On Saturday, November 7, 2026, Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass for about 40,000 people at Parque París Londres in Paysandú, Uruguay—his first Mass in the Americas as pope and the opening liturgy of a 12-day South American journey.
In the homily he drew on three local symbols: the General Artigas International Bridge spanning the Uruguay River, the palm groves, and the shared ritual of drinking mate. “This is the vocation to which we are all called: to build bridges, strengthen bonds, unite, communicate and share the joy of faith,” he said. He closed by urging the faithful to “carry forward the mission of evangelization with enthusiasm. Be bridges, so that many may encounter Jesus,” and earlier insisted that the faith “must be passed on to future generations with creative courage.”
He paid tribute to Blessed Jacinto Vera, Uruguay’s first bishop—the “gaucho bishop” who evangelized the country on horseback in the late nineteenth century and, during the 1864 siege of Paysandú, cared for the wounded on both sides.
A Secular Landscape and the Defense of Life
The visit unfolds in one of Latin America’s most secular societies. Surveys put religiously unaffiliated Uruguayans at about 52 percent and Christians at about 44 percent; more recent figures put Catholics at roughly one-third of the population. Since 1919 the state has renamed traditional Catholic holidays—Holy Week becoming “Tourism Week.”
Addressing civil authorities, Leo asked that religion not be “confined to the private sphere.” He defended human life “from conception to natural death,” declaring: “The unborn already belong to the human family and to the future of their people.” The remarks came as the Broad Front government advances measures on abortion and euthanasia.
The same day, in Montevideo’s Casavalle neighborhood, he said: “We cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that there are children in Uruguay who do not go to school for fear of never returning home.” He called on “the Church, civil society, and the State” to “shake off our apathy and advocate for the common good.”
“Be Saints” at the Centenario
That evening at Estadio Centenario, local authorities counted more than 70,000 inside and 30,000 outside. Leo told the crowd: “Be saints!” and “Christ did not call us to mediocrity.”
The pope’s first day in Uruguay thus joined a call to creative evangelization with a clear defense of life and the vulnerable, pressing a highly secular nation to keep faith public, shared, and handed on.