Paysand̼, Nov 7. (dpa/GNA) РPope Leo XIV, was greeted by tens of thousands of people at the first major Mass of his South American tour in Uruguay on Saturday.
During the service in the city of Paysandú, the head of the Catholic Church called for the Christian faith to be passed on to future generations.
Further stops on the 12-day tour include Argentina and Peru, where Leo served as a missionary and bishop for two decades before his election as pope. The Mass was attended by an estimated 40,000 people.
During the service, the US-born pope appealed to the attendees to spread the faith with “creative courage.” “This is the vocation of us all: to build bridges, to strengthen bonds, to unite and to pass on the joy of the faith.”
The Vatican says, more than 390 million people in South America profess the Catholic faith, significantly more than in Europe. There are 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide.
In Uruguay, a country with a population of 3.5 million and Leo’s first stop, church and state have, however, been strictly separated for more than a century.
There, for example, Christmas is known as “Family Day.” The papal Mass in Paysandú was also attended by many worshippers from neighbouring Argentina, where the Catholic faith is considerably more widespread.
Leo plans to travel on to Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, on Sunday.
Before that, two further Masses are scheduled to take place in Uruguay.
On Saturday evening, the pope is expected at the Centenary Stadium in the capital, Montevideo.
At the start of his visit, he praised Uruguay as a model for the entire continent.
The country has enjoyed four decades of “uninterrupted democracy” with peaceful changes of government, decided by the citizens in free elections, he said, adding that this makes Uruguay an exception in South America.
GNA