{"id":11768,"date":"2026-11-07T12:00:45","date_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/07\/pope-leo-begins-south-america-tour-in-fairly-good-shape\/"},"modified":"2026-11-07T12:00:45","modified_gmt":"2026-11-07T12:00:45","slug":"pope-leo-begins-south-america-tour-in-fairly-good-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/07\/pope-leo-begins-south-america-tour-in-fairly-good-shape\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo begins South America tour in \u2018fairly good shape\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pope<\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Uruguay, where he will celebrate a Mass on Saturday, as he began a 12-day tour of South America in \u201cfairly good shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s sixth international tour takes him to the continent that helped shape his priesthood, just three weeks after surgery for a tumor on his right lung.<\/p>\n

The 71-year-old pontiff will visit Uruguay, Argentina and Peru on one of the most intense papal trips in decades, meeting political leaders, prisoners and the poor, as well as old friends.<\/p>\n

Thousands of people, some waving yellow-and-white Vatican flags, lined the seafront of Uruguay\u2019s capital Montevideo to greet him as he waved from a custom-made popemobile.<\/p>\n

But the crowds were relatively sparse in Latin America\u2019s most secular country compared with Leo\u2019s recent visits to France and Spain.<\/p>\n

Speaking in a half-empty Plaza Independencia, after being welcomed by left-wing President Yamandu Orsi, the pope lamented Uruguay\u2019s high suicide rates \u2014 among the highest in the world \u2014 and appealed for healthcare to be \u201caccessible to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the care he received after his lung cancer diagnosis made him think of the \u201cmany men and women who lack the means to obtain a timely diagnosis\u201d or receive treatment.<\/p>\n

Leo will celebrate Mass on Saturday in a park in Paysandu, a city in western Uruguay, where 30,000 pilgrims are expected.<\/p>\n

He will then return to Montevideo to visit Casavalle, the neighborhood with the highest homicide rate in the capital, as well as the Catholic University and the Centenario Stadium, where he will preside over a prayer vigil for 60,000 people.<\/p>\n

Leo\u2019s visit to Uruguay is the first to the country by a pope in nearly four decades.<\/p>\n

\u2013 In \u2018fairly good shape\u2019 \u2013<\/h2>\n

He told reporters on the plane carrying him across the Atlantic he was \u201cin fairly good shape\u201d following his surgery, and his advice for others facing their own cancer diagnosis was \u201cnot to be afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pontiff said he was bringing a message of \u201chope\u201d to the world\u2019s most Catholic continent.<\/p>\n

Liberal Uruguay is at odds with the Catholic Church \u2014 as well as Latin America\u2019s new crop of conservative leaders \u2014 on issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and euthanasia, which was legalized there last year.<\/p>\n

Leo issued a call for the \u201cprotection of the unborn\u201d but also spoke about issues specific to Uruguay, such as its high suicide rates, which he called \u201cpainful.\u201d<\/p>\n

A committed environmentalist, he had praise for the small country\u2019s \u201cremarkable\u201d achievement in greening its economy, which runs mainly on renewables.<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2018One of my many homes\u2019 \u2013<\/h2>\n

The highlight of his tour will be Peru, where he spent nearly two decades as a missionary and which he has referred to as \u201cone of my many homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Church\u2019s first US-born pope, who has repeatedly clashed with President Donald Trump over the Middle East war, spoke on his plane about voting in this week\u2019s US midterm elections.<\/p>\n

His mail-in ballot made history because he was the first pope known to have voted in a political election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud to be an American and to exercise the right\u201d to vote, he said.<\/p>\n

He will travel on Sunday to Argentina, the homeland of his predecessor Pope Francis, who disappointed many Argentines by not returning to visit during his papacy.<\/p>\n

His trip is seen as a double homecoming of sorts, US-based Vatican expert Christopher White told AFP.<\/p>\n

\u201cHistory\u2019s first Latin American pope, Francis, never returned to his homeland. Leo, a Peruvian citizen, now carries forward that mantle and legacy,\u201d said White, who wrote a book on Pope Leo.<\/p>\n

Peru has been gripped by pope fever in the run-up to his arrival.<\/p>\n

Vendors in Lima are selling T-shirts and rosaries with his image on them, while Leo bread is on sale in bakeries.<\/p>\n

A towering, 14-meter (46-foot) statue of Leo has also been erected in the port city of Callao, which he is set to visit.<\/p>\n

The trip will take him to the former Inca capital of Cusco and the Amazon rainforest, but the pope will also revisit his former life as Robert Francis Prevost, with a supper among priests from his old diocese of Chiclayo and a private visit to a chapel he helped rebuild.<\/p>\n

\n

The post Pope Leo begins South America tour in \u2018fairly good shape\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Vanguard News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Source: <\/p>\n

Vanguard News<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Uruguay, where he will celebrate a Mass on Saturday, as he began a 12-day tour of South America in \u201cfairly good shape.\u201d Leo\u2019s sixth international… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11769,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnigerianews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}