Buenos Aires (Argentina) (AFP) – Popular enthusiasm exploded Monday on the second day of Pope Leo

Published on: 09/11/2026 - 18:06

"Today, it's different, the pope is going to speak to us. He's our pastor," Carlos Mesada, a 54-year-old professor, told AFP, in the middle of the multitude waiting for the pope's arrival between chants, guitars, and slogans "Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé, Léon, Léon!".

After a first day of the Pope's visit without access to the public punctuated by official engagements, including a meeting with President Javier Milei, Leo

From dawn, a human tide headed towards a vast area of ​​the parks of the Palermo district and nearby avenues, planted with 33 giant screens, to follow the "mass for families".

From the night, the faithful had camped around the parks, particularly from distant Patagonia, with many feeling a touch of regret "for not having had Francis", the Argentine predecessor of Leo, who was never able to return to his country in 12 years of pontificate.

The “progress of a nation”

“But there is still emotion, and all we want is peace and work,” confided Carlos Fuentes, 60, who came from Salta, 1,500 km from the capital.

According to local authorities, 2.5 million people attended the service.

In his homily, the sovereign pontiff defended the Christian family, which "more than ever (...) represents a pillar in the midst of the many precarities of our time", evoking precarious employment, domestic violence and addictions.

Earlier Monday, Leo XIV delivered a second vigorous social plea in 48 hours, on the disabled, after the economically excluded the day before.

“The progress of a nation is measured (...) by the welcome it gives to all people with disabilities or those with specific needs,” he said, during his visit to a charitable institution welcoming 410 residents with severe, neurological or psychomotor disabilities, in Claypole, an hour from Buenos Aires.

On his way, tens of thousands of people greeted his passage in the popemobile, an enthusiastic crowd, both moved and proud.

“We must always think of the most humble of our homeland, who today are so abandoned,” Ana Trucco, a 22-year-old student, told AFP. “That Pope Leo comes, with the legacy of Francis, to speak to these people, that seems extremely important to me.”

The values ​​of “dignity, integration and friendship” of places like Cottolengo “have a lot to bring to our societies, often guided solely by the search for economic success or the cult of physical appearance,” continued Leo XIV.

“A blessing, not a burden”

“Your lives are not a burden on society, they are a blessing, because you can help us not to forget what constitutes the basis of the dignity of every being,” he told the residents.

Away from the cameras, he visited a pavilion housing people with the most severe disabilities, then received testimony from two residents.

“For many years I traveled many places looking for a place to live (...) Until the day I met Cottolengo,” Marta Torres, blind and suffering from cerebral palsy, abandoned by her mother as a child, told the Pope.

“They helped me to no longer feel rejected, because by dint of coming and going, searching without finding, I felt left out. But here, I feel so happy that (...) all that is behind me,” concluded Marta, a caregiver whispering her brief testimony in her ear, before giving the Pope a book she wrote about her life.

The papal spotlight on Cottolengo, nicknamed "the little town of charity", comes in the wake of a tense budgetary debate in Argentina on disability.

The executive of the ultra-liberal Milei planned a reform of the benefits system, decried as a disguised budget cut. Reform finally suspended for 2027, after parliamentary negotiations.

On Sunday, in a speech to authorities including Javier Milei, the pope affirmed that the economy must be "at the service of the person, and not the person at the service of the economy." Strong message, in a country where the local Church has often criticized the social cost of the ultraliberal government's austerity.

The 71-year-old pontiff is undertaking an ambitious 12-day tour of Uruguay, Argentina and then Peru, just four weeks after an operation for lung cancer.

© 2026 AFP

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.