Pope will find a 'wounded' Argentina on visit, says archbishop

The Archbishop of Buenos Aires said on Friday that Pope Leo XIV will find a country wounded, divided and in crisis during his visit to Argentina next month.

“Pope Leo will find an Argentina that has been in crisis for many years,” Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva told reporters at Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires 

Leo XIV will arrive in Argentina from Uruguay, staying from November 8 to 11, before travelling on to Peru as part of a South American tour.

It will be the first papal visit to Argentina in 38 years. His predecessor Pope Francis, who was born in Buenos Aires, never returned to his homeland after being elected in 2013, staying away until his death in 2025.

“The Pope is coming because his pastoral heart is in Latin America,” García Cuerva said.

“He will find an Argentina wounded and divided by that famous grieta [political divide] that hurts deep in the soul of the people, where disqualification and intolerance are the order of the day,” he said, referring to the country’s social and political climate.

The archbishop also referred to poverty, which increased again during the first half of this year after declining for two years. It affects around one-third of the population and almost half of children under 14, with 10 percent living in extreme poverty.

The pope will visit “an Argentina where a very large percentage of people are suffering, with brothers and sisters who have been very poor for many years” but who nevertheless “do not give up,” García Cuerva said.

The Catholic Church, the biggest faith in Argentina, will hold one of the country’s largest annual religious pilgrimages next Saturday, with thousands of people expected to walk from the capital to the Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, 60 kilometres north of Buenos Aires.

With the Pope’s visit approaching, the pilgrimage, which usually draws tens of thousands of people, is expected to attract more than one million pilgrims this Saturday despite forecasts of bad weather and storms.

According to the announced itinerary, Leo XIV will celebrate Mass at the Luján shrine, Argentina’s patron saint, on Wednesday, November 11, before departing for Peru.

– TIMES/AFP