By Joshua McElwee
CORDOBA, Argentina, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Pope Leo drew 650,000 people to an outdoor Mass in Argentina’s second city of Cordoba on Tuesday, the second strong turnout on his 12-day South America tour, as pilgrims travelled from across the country for the event.
Throngs pressed against barriers at an Argentine military airfield as Leo arrived for the Mass in an open-air popemobile. Many waved white-and-yellow Vatican flags and chanted, “We love you, Pope Leo.”
Leo, on an ambitious three-country tour through November 17, is travelling 1,300 km (807 miles) back and forth from Buenos Aires on Tuesday for two events in Cordoba, a city nestled in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas mountain range with strong Catholic history and long ties to the Jesuit order.
In his sermon for the Mass, the pope praised Argentina’s long history of Catholic devotion, citing the example of its first woman saint, the 18th-century nun known as Mama Antula, and of a bishop, two priests and a layman who were killed by the Argentine military junta in 1976.
“Here in Cordoba … we wish to give thanks to God for the diverse fruits of holiness borne by the men and women whom the Lord sent to this land of Argentina,” he said.
Leo is the first pope to visit Catholic-majority Argentina since 1987.
POPE SEEKS TO SHORE UP CATHOLIC STRONGHOLD
Some 2.5 million people took part in a Mass with the pope in Buenos Aires on Monday, the largest event of his 18-month papacy.
The pope, who is also visiting Uruguay and Peru on the tour, is seeking to reinforce a region that has long been a Catholic stronghold but where the Church has been losing ground to fast-growing evangelical denominations.
Leo has emerged as a forceful voice on the world stage, lamenting what he sees as a failure of global leadership. In Argentina, he has directly challenged President Javier Milei, a libertarian and close ally of US President Donald Trump.
On Sunday, Leo urged Milei, who has pushed an austerity agenda that the Church has criticized for cutting social services, not to target Argentina’s poorest.
Valentin Gomez, 21, a student attending Mass in Cordoba, praised Leo’s focus on those in need.
“In these difficult times we are living through, he is greatly needed,” Gomez said. “Someone who is truly concerned about the poor.”
Cordoba Cardinal Angel Sixto Rossi, a critic of the austerity policies, welcomed Leo’s visit as a chance for the pope to see how Argentina is suffering under Milei’s measures.
“He knows how beautiful our people are and the ugly part, the leadership of the government,” he said in a recent interview with a local outlet. “He doesn’t arrive blindfolded.”
Milei has said spending cuts were necessary to bring inflation under control.
Argentine Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno said Cordoba was chosen as a stop on the pope’s tour because of its location in the center of Argentina, allowing pilgrims to travel easily from neighboring provinces.
Leo, the first US-born pope, spent decades as a missionary in Peru. The Vatican has described the trip, one of the most demanding foreign tours by a pope in decades, as a “homecoming” for him.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee, additional reporting by Leila Miller, Lucila Sigal, Horacio Soria; editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rod Nickel)
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