Caravans of Brazilians liven up Uruguay's lukewarm reception to Leão 14

It was not necessary to walk more than five minutes in the crowd that watched the arrival of Pope Leo the 14th in Uruguay, on Friday (6), to hear Portuguese or see a green and yellow flag. They were the thousands of Brazilians who crossed the border and cheered up the lukewarm reception of the most secular country in Latin America for the religious leader.

According to the National Directorate of Migration of Uruguay, which does not discriminate against the nationality of travelers, more than 47,500 people entered the country between last Thursday (5) and 12pm this Saturday (7), the day of the expected prayer vigil at the Centenário Stadium, in Montevideo. On a typical weekend, around 14,000 people usually enter the country, the agency reported in 2024.

The increase in flow was expected. For many residents of the south, this is a more convenient opportunity than a visit by the pontiff to Brazil, where he would likely limit himself to the country's largest cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, Brasília and São Paulo, and those with more religious appeal, such as Aparecida.

Therefore, the government has reinforced the number of employees to speed up immigration procedures at some posts since Thursday, in addition to temporarily restricting cargo transport on two bridges that connect with Argentina.

Parishes, dioceses and religious groups in the south of the country have been organizing to see Leo since August, when the Vatican announced that the pontiff would visit Uruguay after almost four decades since a pope's last trip to the nation.

Father Douglas Kaefer Klug, for example, from the Diocese of Uruguaiana, was one of the organizers of a caravan. "If he came to Brazil, it would certainly be unfeasible for us, because he would probably go to the center of the country", says the religious man, who organized 175 people on four buses to go to Paysandú, 340 km from the city of Rio Grande do Sul.

It was there that the pontiff said his first mass on his 12-day tour of South America, which will also include Argentina and Peru. At the service, Leão asked the region to overcome divisions and invited countries to prioritize "building bridges", repeating the call for regional diplomacy that he had made in the first speech of the trip, the day before.

Crowds awaited his arrival in the open all night, under heavy rain, which eased shortly before his arrival. He is the first pope to visit the city, an important economic center in northwestern Uruguay.

The speech that opened the trip, on Friday, was given in Praça da Independência, which occupies around four blocks in the center of Montevideo. The crowd filled only half the space, and a person who was late for the pontiff's arrival in the popemobile would face just three rows of faithful to the railing that separated the public from the street.

There was Thiago Araújo, who estimates that more than 300 faithful left the Archdiocese of Pelotas for Uruguay. From the group he coordinates, the Emmaus Movement, there are more than 200 people in four buses that covered a ten-hour journey, according to him.

“Seeing the pope is an unmissable event,” he says. "We believe that this trip to Uruguay will give new enthusiasm to the Church here." The group, according to him, will head this Sunday (8) morning to Florida, about an hour and a half from Montevideo, where the pope will pray his second mass of the trip.

Then, in mid-afternoon, the pontiff leaves for Buenos Aires, where he will meet President Javier Milei at the Casa Rosada. The reception in Argentina is expected to be warmer — the nation waited in vain for a visit from fellow countryman Francisco, who died in April last year without returning to his home country.

Currently, Uruguay is the only country in the region without a Christian majority, according to the Pew Research Center. A survey released in August this year by the consultancy Cifra shows that the proportion of Catholics in the nation is 32.5%, with 23.7% considering themselves non-practicing. Agnostics or atheists, in turn, represent 28.2% of the population.

"Being with you tonight allows me to share a reflection on something that many Christian communities experience: the advance of secularization and an increasingly widespread religious indifference", said Leão at the Centenário Stadium to tens of thousands of faithful. "In many places, faith is no longer transmitted as naturally as previous generations, and the number of those who spend a large part of their lives without a habitual relationship with the Church or religious practice is growing."