Pope Leo is set to visit Uruguay in November, according to a report on Thursday by Teledoce, which cited the Catholic Church in Montevideo. Uruguay’s foreign ministry said it is preparing for the visit.
The trip would be part of a broader tour of southern Latin America announced in February, with Peru and Argentina also expected to be on the itinerary. The visit to the region at the end of the year is expected to draw large crowds.
For Uruguay, that makes the timing notable. The country is one of the region’s most secular, and church and state are formally separated there, which gives any papal stop an added edge that goes beyond ceremony.
Leo also has a deep personal link to the region. He was a missionary in Peru for decades, was first ordained a bishop for the diocese of Chiclayo in Peru’s northwest, and became a Peruvian citizen in 2015. That history helps explain why the regional tour is being watched closely in South America, especially as the itinerary is expected to include Argentina as well.
The friction lies in the contrast between the scale of the visit and Uruguay’s religious landscape. A papal trip that would likely pack public spaces is heading to a country where the church has a smaller public role than in much of the rest of Latin America. That mix suggests the visit will be as much a regional event as a local one, with Uruguay, Peru and Argentina all folded into the same end-of-year moment.
