Argentina, Pope Leo XIV: "Precariat destroys". Record crowd for mass in Buenos Aires

Record crowd for the Pope in Buenos Aires, with Argentinians who have been waiting for a Pontiff for forty years and today took to the streets of the capital for Leo XIV. Prevost's day began in an atmosphere of emotion with dozens of disabled people cared for by Cottolengo and continued with the oceanic mass and then the meeting with the world of work and with religious leaders.

Today in Buenos Aires and its surroundings was a day entirely dedicated to the social world for Pope Leo XIV. The first appointment was with a visit to the Piccolo Cottolengo of Don Orione which assists disabled people and people with addictions. The Pontiff went to the site in the Popemobile, passing among the people and greeting the faithful who came to the street to meet him.

"The progress of a nation is also measured by the welcome it offers to people with disabilities", said the Pope during his visit to Piccolo Cottolengo in Claypole, 30 kilometers from Buenos Aires.

Addressing the people assisted, Leone also underlined: "Today I would like to affirm that your lives are not a burden for society, they are a blessing, because you can help us not to forget what is the foundation of the dignity of every human being and what is truly important in life". Building new societies that start from the least, overcoming selfishness and the cult of physical appearance, is the Pope's other message from Cottolengo.

"Let us put the gifts received at the service of the little ones and the needy", so that "the city of charity consolidates, expands and manages to break down the boundaries of selfishness", the Pope said during his visit to the disabled. For Leone "the values ​​of dignity, integration and fraternal friendship that distinguish places like this have a lot to say to our societies, often guided exclusively by the search for economic success or the cult of physical appearance".

The Pope then moved to the Palermo area of ​​Buenos Aires, near the "Monumento de los Españoles", to celebrate Mass for the family. According to the official estimate of the Argentine Presidency, at least two million people came to attend the mass: it was Leo XIV's first mass event of his trip to South America.

After the official estimate from the Argentine Presidency, which had spoken of two million faithful present at the Mass, the update from the National Police arrived: the faithful present at the Pontiff's Mass in Buenos Aires would be two and a half million. The spokesperson of the archdiocese of Buenos Aires added that there had never been so many for Pope Leo's mass.

In the homily of the mass in Buenos Aires, Leone invited us not to lose hope, even when the lack of work or difficult living conditions seem to have no way out. "Even our families, in fact, sometimes experience complex situations: lack of stability, social difficulties, precarious work, domestic violence, painful separations, addictions that destroy and compromise family relationships", he said. Christ, who is the "rock", "supports the house, protecting it from storms", added the Pontiff.

"The history, culture and society of Argentina have found in the family the source from which to draw the fundamental values ​​of the people – said Leone –. In your land, a meeting place of different cultures and ethnic groups, the family has been the reality in which to transmit faith, human virtues, culture of work, respect for the elderly, defense of life and fidelity to one's word. Do not resign yourself to the voices that repeat that the Christian family is outdated: today more than ever it represents a pillar among the many precarious situations of our era".

Among the crowd who attended the Pope's mass there was also the President of the Argentine Republic Javier Milei: sitting in the front row, with his younger sister and General Secretary of the Presidency Karina Milei next to him, and Jorge Macri, governor of the city of Buenos Aires, who yesterday handed over the keys to the city to Leo XIV.

Then, after mass at the Monumento de los Espanoles, Leone participated in the meeting with the world of work at the Catholic University of Argentina. Followed by the meeting with religious leaders. The Pope's public day ends in the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, where some of Bergoglio's vestments are kept, with Vespers.

The Pontiff also had a conversation with five people, victims of abuse by members of the clergy and ecclesial institutions in Argentina, and expressed "his closeness and desire to strengthen ways of protection, goodness, welcome and accompaniment in the Church".

"Unemployment is a real drama in the life of those afflicted by it. Depriving a person of work does not simply mean denying him an economic income; it means seriously injuring his dignity, canceling his ability to contribute to society and plunging him into exclusion, fragmenting the cohesion of the social body and destroying community action aimed at the common good", said the Pope at the Catholic University in Buenos Aires in the meeting with the world of work.

Yesterday, however, there was a meeting between Prevost and the Argentine president Javier Milei, at the Casa Rosada. The pontiff will remain in Argentina until Wednesday 11 November. And his entire journey, which began in Uruguay, will continue until November 17: after Argentina Leone will also stop in Peru.