CORDOBA, Argentina — Pope Leo drew some 650,000 people to an outdoor Mass in Argentina's second city of Cordoba on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, in the second strong turnout of crowds on his 12-day South America tour, as pilgrims travelled from across the country for the event, Reuters reported.
Source: Reuters via SRN News, Nov 10, 2026
Throngs pressed against barriers on an Argentine military airfield as Leo arrived for the Mass in an open-air popemobile, many waving white-and-yellow Vatican flags and chanting “We love you, Pope Leo,” Reuters reported. The Mass was held on the grounds of the Military Aviation School at the state-run Argentine Aircraft Factory (FAdeA), the Associated Press reported.
Source: Reuters / Associated Press, Nov 10, 2026
Leo, on an ambitious three-country tour through November 17, travelled some 1,300 km (807 miles) back and forth from Buenos Aires on Tuesday for two events in Cordoba, a city in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas range with strong Catholic history and long ties to the Jesuit order, Reuters reported. Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said Cordoba was chosen because of its location in the centre of the country, allowing pilgrims to travel easily from neighbouring provinces.
Source: Reuters via SRN News, Nov 10, 2026
Some pilgrims came much further. Religious education teachers Erika Vinales, 39, and Elena Llanquenao, 54, travelled 2,000 kilometres — more than 1,200 miles — from Santa Cruz province in the far south, the AP reported. “It was quite a journey,” Vinales said. Pablo Gonzalez, a 44-year-old plumber from Tucuman province in the north, told the AP: “I never imagined the pope would come to Argentina and that I'd come to see him.”
Source: Associated Press via Newslooks, Nov 10, 2026
“Land of saints” — and a painful history
In his homily, Leo described Cordoba as a “land of saints.” He praised St Jose Gabriel del Rosario Brochero, the “Gaucho priest” canonized by Pope Francis in 2016, who travelled by mule to remote communities, and Maria Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, known as Mama Antula, the 18th-century nun canonized by Francis in 2024 as Argentina's first woman saint, the AP and Reuters reported. “We are all called to holiness,” Leo said. “These saints and blesseds have already fulfilled their mission on Earth. Today, it is our turn to follow the radiant example of holiness they have left with us.” In his sermon he also cited a bishop, two priests and a lay man who were killed by Argentina's military junta in 1976, Reuters reported.
Source: Associated Press / Reuters, Nov 10, 2026
The setting itself carried that history: the aircraft factory whose grounds hosted the Mass was operated by the air force for much of the 20th century and built attack aircraft used against leftist guerrillas in late 1975, before the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983, the AP reported; human rights organisations estimate about 30,000 people were killed or disappeared during the dictatorship. After the Mass, Leo was scheduled to greet 20 people chosen by Cordoba's Archbishop, Cardinal Angel Rossi, to represent the poor and marginalized — among them Alba Camargo, 64, who was detained by security forces in 1976 at age 13 and is still searching for relatives abducted to the La Perla clandestine detention centre outside Cordoba, the AP reported.
Source: Associated Press via Newslooks, Nov 10, 2026
What is solid
- An estimated 650,000 people attended Pope Leo's Mass in Cordoba on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, following about 2.5 million at his Buenos Aires Mass on Monday — both figures are Vatican/organiser estimates reported by Reuters and the AP.
- Leo is the first pope to visit Argentina since 1987, on a 12-day, three-country tour (Uruguay, Argentina, Peru) running through November 17 (Reuters).
- In Cordoba Leo praised Argentina's saints, including Brochero and Mama Antula, and cited church figures killed by the military junta in 1976 (Reuters/AP).
What is only claimed
- Crowd figures for open-air Masses are estimates by the Vatican and local authorities, not counts; different outlets rounded the Buenos Aires figure as 'more than two million' or 'about 2.5 million.'
- The approximately 30,000 figure for people killed or disappeared under the 1976-83 dictatorship is an estimate by human rights organisations, as the AP reported it; the number remains politically contested in Argentina.
The tour is also a political backdrop. Leo, the first US-born pope, who spent decades as a missionary in Peru, has directly challenged President Javier Milei: on Sunday he urged Milei, who has pushed an austerity agenda the Church has criticized for cutting social services, not to target Argentina's poorest, Reuters reported. Cordoba's Cardinal Rossi, a critic of the austerity policies, said he welcomed the visit as a chance for the pope to see how Argentina is suffering under those measures. The Vatican has described the trip — one of the most demanding foreign tours by a pope in decades — as a “homecoming” for Leo, Reuters reported.
Source: Reuters via SRN News, Nov 10, 2026
On Wednesday, his last day in Argentina, Leo is scheduled to visit inmates at Buenos Aires' Devoto Prison and celebrate Mass at Lujan before travelling on to Peru, the final leg of the tour that ends on November 17. The Church is seeking to reinforce a region that has long been a Catholic stronghold but where it has recently been losing ground to fast-growing evangelical denominations, Reuters reported.