Claypole (Argentina) (AFP) – The Cottolengo Don Orione, a charity house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, is experiencing hectic days as it prepares to receive the visit of Pope Leo XIV, in the midst of a sensitive debate in Argentina about state aid for the disabled.

First modification: 02/11/2026 - 16:31

With its zigzagging streets surrounded by flowering bushes, its central square, workshops and 16 dormitories plus a cemetery, Cottolengo is a small town where 410 adults with disabilities live together, many in need of permanent assistance.

The Pope will visit him on Monday, November 9 as part of the South American tour that also includes Uruguay and Peru, and which will take place after the removal of a cancerous lung tumor that he underwent in mid-October.

Technicians and logistics managers prepare the installation of cameras for the official transmission in the chapel that will receive the pope in the town of Claypole.

The doubts that arose regarding the tour due to Leo XIV's serious health problem did not alter the plans. "We continue working in the same way," Luciana Ponce, coordinator of the Cottolengo homes, where 380 people work, explained to AFP.

And the residents "also live it with great expectation," he says.

"I'm happy with the pope. I hope I can meet him," says Esteban, a 44-year-old resident who works with ceramics in one of the workshops. Their companions knead bread, paint or dance.

"I hope you feel at home," he adds as he wipes the rim of a mug he has just molded.

A sensitive debate

The Argentine Congress discusses the 2027 budget, including disability benefits.

The government of ultra-liberal President Javier Milei proposed making the support regime for people with disabilities more flexible, a reform that patients, sector organizations and the opposition denounce as a hidden budget adjustment.

The Argentine episcopate explained that the papal visit takes as its motto the encyclical that the pontiff published in May, which calls for turning "the poor, the sick, the migrants, the little ones" into the "cornerstones" of a "solid and hospitable common home."

The Catholic Church intervened in September. In a document titled "The fragility that humanizes us," his Social Pastoral questioned whether attention to disability was addressed solely from a budgetary perspective.

"In the face of fragility, the State's response should not be reduced to a mathematical equation," he said.

Protagonists

The meeting with the pope at the Cottolengo Don Orione will last about 45 minutes and will include a ceremony in the chapel.

"We are going to remove all the benches so that as many wheelchairs as possible can fit, we want the disabled to be the protagonists," explains brother Jorge Silanes, director of Cottolengo, to AFP.

Screens will be installed outside the premises for the thousands of faithful expected. They will be able to greet the pontiff during the kilometer that the popemobile will travel before entering the property.

There will also be a moment without cameras: Leo XIV will visit a pavilion where people who remain bedridden live.

Founded in 1936, the place owes its name to Saint Joseph Benito Cottolengo, an Italian priest who in 1928 opened a home for the sick and excluded in Turin.

The center is named after Don Orione, another Italian priest, canonized in 2004, who dedicated his life to this work of assistance. His congregation today manages homes in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, with about 1,300 residents in total.

© 2026 AFP

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