Pope Leo arrives in South America for 12-day tour less than a month after surgery amid lung cancer diagnosis

Pope Leo XIV has arrived in Uruguay to start a 12-day, three-nation journey across South America, coming less than four weeks after undergoing lung surgery.The 71-year-old pontiff had the lower lobe of his right lung removed following a cancer diagnosis in October.The visit marks the first papal trip in almost 40 years to Uruguay, regarded as Latin America’s most secular country, where Pope John Paul II last travelled in 1988.The arrival in Montevideo followed a flight of nearly 14 hours from Rome, with church bells ringing across the nation and Uruguay’s President Yamandú Orsi greeting him at Carrasco International Airport.Spectators gathered along Montevideo's waterfront route beneath overcast and windy skies, cheering as the open-sided popemobile carried Leo into the capital for his initial engagements."I am very happy, and I am certain that his visit will bring us much good fortune and many blessings," said retiree Marie Hernández, a 75-year-old Catholic. "We are a secular country, and it is truly beautiful to see the unity among all religions, whether Catholic or otherwise."During his dense three-day schedule in Uruguay, the pope will visit a neighbourhood troubled by gang violence and lead Masses in Paysandú, roughly 375 kilometres (230 miles) from Montevideo, and in the city of Florida, situated about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the capital.He will subsequently travel to Argentina, the homeland of the late Pope Francis, who did not return there during his 12-year papacy. The tour will conclude in Peru, where Leo holds citizenship and spent two decades serving as a missionary and bishop.Pope Leo XIV delivers a speech during a welcome ceremony at Plaza Independencia in Montevideo (AFP/Getty)The trip represents the longest and most distant of his pontificate, undertaken as the pope continues to recover from his recent surgery.“His stamina is fantastic. The way that he's singing is incredible. And you can only sing if your lungs are really strong,” said María Montserrat Alvarado, the Vatican's new communications chief. She noted that Leo has passed the 14-day convalescence period required by doctors after his Oct. 13 surgery and is eager to get on the road.“His doctors are very confident and he'll have plenty of medical care on board should something happen, but we don't see that in his prognosis or even in the way that he's acting,” she said.Uruguay’s first papal visit for almost 40 yearsIn Uruguay, which hasn’t had a papal visit since 1988, Leo is expected to try to remind the 3.5 million people of their strong Catholic heritage stemming from the times of Spanish colonial rule. He's likely to propose the faith anew as an answer to today’s challenges and problems.Leo will meet with Orsi, leader of the center-left alliance that assumed power in March 2025, and then deliver his welcome address to government officials and diplomats. He finishes the long day with a vespers service at the city's cathedral.Latin America is home to around 40% of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics, but Uruguay is considered the most secular country in the region. Only a fraction of people who identify as Catholic actually go to Mass regularly.Uruguay’s secularism has roots in the weakness of its colonial church. With no gold or silver to mine, Spain valued the land of cattle ranches mainly as a buffer against Portuguese Brazil and left it largely unsettled. Montevideo was founded only in the 1720s, roughly two centuries after Mexico City and Lima.Latin America is home to around 40% of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics (Reuters)With few priests and no local bishop, the church never became the powerful institution it was elsewhere in the empire. “Uruguay was colonized late, and that made Catholicism weaker,” said Gerardo Caetano, a Uruguayan historian.The origins of the separation between church and state can be traced back to the 19th century, particularly to the spread of liberal ideas promoted by European intellectuals, who viewed religion as a symptom of backwardness or a lack of rationality, said Luis Bahamondes, a professor at the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Chile.“While Latin America also experienced a separation of church and state, the Catholic Church has nonetheless maintained strong ties with the various states in the region,” he said. “In this context, Uruguay stands out as a paradigmatic example of how secularism can be implemented.”This process went so far as to include the renaming of certain holidays to reflect their secular character — such as “Family Day” and “Tourism Week” — signaling that the “inherent weight of Catholicism had no place within the State’s official framework,” Bahamondes added.Since then, Uruguay has become the first country in the world to legalize marijuana for recreational use, the second country in Latin America to decriminalize abortion, and the third country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage.More recently, it became the first country in the region to approve assisted dying legislation despite the strong opposition of the Catholic Church.Montevideo awoke to its usual calm Friday. Along the waterfront, joggers were out for their morning runs and residents walked their dogs along the very same promenade that the pope is set to visit just a few hours later.The 71-year-old pontiff had the lower lobe of his right lung removed following a cancer diagnosis in October. (AFP/Getty)“We still don’t understand why he chose Uruguay, given that it’s a secular country, but we hope he leaves something positive behind,” said Mary Fernández while drinking mate, Uruguay’s beloved beverage.Uruguayan church officials have marveled at the apparent enthusiasm that the visit has provoked, with reports that tickets to Leo’s prayer vigil at Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium were snapped up after two days.“It seems that the pope’s presence is shifting something here and is gradually breaking down this veil that has always sought to obscure and diminish the presence of the Catholic tradition that lies at the country’s foundation,” said Guzmán Carriquiry, the Uruguayan former head of the Vatican’s pontifical commission for Latin America.Recalling the Catholic origins of independenceCarriquiry said that he expects Leo will seek to revive the Catholic roots of Uruguay, especially when he travels to the city of Florida on Sunday to mark an important Catholic feast day.The Nov. 8 feast commemorates the Virgin of the Thirty-three, a small wooden icon of the Virgin Mary that is intricately connected to Uruguay’s independence movement. According to tradition, 33 independence patriots acquired the Guaraní statue and had it with them when independence was declared from the Brazilian empire in Florida on Aug. 25, 1825.Andrew Chesnut, chair of Catholic studies and an expert in the Latin American church at Virginia Commonwealth University, said that he wasn’t surprised that Leo’s visit had generated enthusiasm and that he will be welcomed warmly.“But that’s not necessarily going to translate into folks in the pews,” he said. “If the overarching goal is trying to revitalize Catholicism in the most Catholic region on Earth, Uruguay is kind of a lost cause, and it has been for decades.”