Pope Leo XIV urged an estimated 40,000 people in Uruguay on Saturday to build bridges of fraternity and faith, as he used his first Mass in South America to deliver an ode to the region's beloved mate tea and raise the profile of the Catholic Church in its most secular country, the Associated Press reported. The Mass, at the Parque Paris Londres in Paysandu, a city of about 80,000 people on the Uruguay River border with Argentina, was also his first Mass in the Americas since his election as pope, Catholic News Agency reported.
The crowd erupted in a chant of 'ole, ole, ole, ole, Pope, Pope!' when Leo's plane landed in Paysandu, and cheered again, blew horns and waved yellow handkerchiefs when he arrived in his open-sided popemobile at the Mass site. More than 30,000 people — many from Uruguay but also from neighbouring Argentina and Brazil — had registered in advance to attend the service, about 375 kilometres (230 miles) from the capital, Montevideo; the Vatican said another 10,000 showed up beyond that, despite the morning rain and blustery, grey skies, AP reported. Faithful in rain ponchos began streaming in when the gates opened at 5:30 a.m. as a band played popular Spanish hymns.
Source: Al Jazeera, Nov 7 2026 — Pope Leo holds first mass in Uruguay, urges crowd to be 'bridge builders'
Bridges, palm groves and mate
Leo organised his homily around three symbols — bridges, palm groves and mate, the traditional herbal infusion drunk in company across the region, Catholic News Agency reported. Bridges bring people together, he said; palm trees, which grow not separately but in groves, are a symbol of rootedness and of the Church. Of mate, passed from hand to hand in a shared gourd, he said: 'It teaches us to share and to be together, strengthening the bonds that unite us as brothers and sisters. It is a sign of welcome, integration and shared values.' In his AP-reported remarks he also recalled the bridge over the Uruguay River that unites Uruguay and Argentina, over which many pilgrims had travelled to attend. The Mass was dedicated to Blessed Jacinto Vera, a 19th-century priest who became Uruguay's first bishop, remembered as the 'gaucho bishop' who travelled the country's roads to help the poor.
The Paysandu Mass came on the first full day of Leo's 12-day, three-nation tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, which runs from November 6 to 17 and is his first overseas trip since last month's surgery. He arrived in Montevideo on Friday, where President Yamandu Orsi greeted him — the arrival Awaaz Punjab reported on November 6 — and told seminarians, priests and bishops at an evening vespers service in the cathedral that 'one of the secrets of evangelisation is to resemble the one whom we proclaim.'
Source: Associated Press, Nov 7 2026 — first Mass report, tour context
Leo's arrival in Montevideo on Friday — greeted by President Orsi on the first papal visit to Uruguay since 1988 — opened the tour this Mass now headlines. Read: Pope Leo's Uruguay tour begins with unity appeal
The setting was deliberate. Uruguay, population 3.5 million, is South America's most secular country, where more than half the population is unaffiliated with organised religion, CNA noted, and the Catholic Church had no new seminarians in Uruguay in 2024, though a few have since entered training, AP reported. 'He's the representative of Christ but he's human. And we weren't sure if he could make it, but he pushed through for us,' said Soledad Sanchez, 73, who had driven to Paysandu from northern Uruguay. Paysandu itself, AP noted, greeted the pope quietly, with scant decorations and only a few homes flying Vatican flags.
What is solid
- An estimated 40,000 people attended the Mass in Paysandu on Saturday — the Vatican's figure, reported by AP, Al Jazeera and CNA; 30,000 had registered in advance.
- It was the first Mass of Leo's South America tour and his first Mass in the Americas since his election — AP and CNA agree; the homily's bridges-and-mate message is quoted by both.
What is only claimed
- Crowd figures are estimates by the Vatican and local authorities, not a counted total; reports describe both a fervent crowd inside the park and a quiet, lightly decorated city outside it.
Leo chose a provincial border city of 80,000 — easier for Argentine pilgrims across the river to reach than his later Argentina stops — for the tour's first Mass, taking the Church's message to ordinary people far from the capital in the region's most secular country, rather than opening with a state occasion in Montevideo.
What happens next: Leo was to tour a Montevideo neighbourhood beset by drug trafficking and gang violence later on Saturday, where the Church works with municipal authorities on housing and addiction programmes, and then lead a prayer vigil in Montevideo's Centenary Stadium, where about 60,000 young people were expected, AP reported. After three days in Uruguay he spends three days in Argentina — Buenos Aires, Lujan and Cordoba — and five days in Peru, his second homeland, where he served for about 20 years as a missionary and bishop, CNA reported.