On the plane: health and the vote
Less than a month after surgery to remove the lower lobe of his right lung, Pope Leo XIV is in the middle of a 12-day trip through Uruguay, Argentina and Peru — and in his own words, on the plane, in Uruguay and now in Argentina, the trip has become a rolling message about voting, illness and the people the Church serves.
On Friday, November 6, aboard the 14-and-a-half-hour flight from Rome to Montevideo, the Pope walked to the back of the plane to greet the roughly 80 journalists traveling with him. He had never doubted the trip would happen.
“I confess that from the first day, I had no doubt and was convinced that this trip had to go forward.”
Asked how he was feeling, he said he was “in fairly good shape” — and when a reporter asked if he felt as good as he looked, he answered, “Maybe better.” His secret for bouncing back so quickly from surgery?
“Faith in God, good doctors and a healthy lifestyle.”
And his advice for anyone facing a cancer diagnosis:
“Not to be afraid. Early detection is obviously the best way to go, and so regular checkups are a blessing. And take care of yourselves.”
The illness, he said, gave him “a sense of commitment of wanting to continue to be close to those who are sick” and strengthened his conviction that “healthcare should be a right of all people” — a point he said he planned to make later that day in Uruguay.
On the vote itself, he pointed reporters to the Vatican’s confirmation and added one line of his own:
“I’m proud to be an American and to exercise the right [to vote].”
He declined to comment on the election results. The Pope, a naturalized citizen of Peru as well, said he would have voted in Peru’s elections earlier this year if he could have done so from Rome: “I didn’t vote because it wasn’t possible, but I would’ve done it; it’s a good thing.” In the hospital, his reading had been his breviary, his prayer book and newspapers — and he has not yet resumed his tennis game, but intends to.
Uruguay: healthcare as a duty
Hours later, at a welcome ceremony in Montevideo’s Plaza Independencia alongside Uruguayan President Yamandú Orsi, the Pope turned his own experience into a demand. It was the first papal visit to Uruguay since St. John Paul II came in 1988.
“Recently I experienced firsthand the limitations imposed by illness and I received care for which I am deeply grateful. That experience makes me think of the many men and women who lack the means to obtain a timely diagnosis or receive the treatments they need. Ensuring that healthcare is accessible to everyone, regardless of their resources, is a duty that confronts every society.”
“It is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that each person can live with dignity.”
Argentina: the limits of power
On Sunday, November 8, in Buenos Aires, the Pope addressed President Javier Milei and the country’s authorities at the Palacio Libertad, opening his three-day visit to Argentina — the first papal visit to the majority-Catholic country since 1987.
“Authority is most authentic when it is exercised as service.”
“Those who exercise authority have a duty to act with prudence, to acknowledge the limits of the power entrusted to them, and to direct their decisions toward the good of the entire community.”
He urged that Argentina’s efforts at economic recovery not come at the expense of the poorest:
“Efforts should be made to promote whatever creates opportunities, stimulates private initiative and ensures that economic growth also benefits those who are disadvantaged.”
Buenos Aires: a day with the Pope
Monday, November 9, ran from a home for people with disabilities at dawn to Pope Francis’s old cathedral after dark. At the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione in Claypole, a residential home for 410 adults with disabilities in a lower-income suburb south of Buenos Aires, he praised the work of the caregivers and residents:
“The values of dignity, belonging, and fraternal friendship that distinguish places like this have much to say to our societies, which are often driven solely by the pursuit of economic success or the cult of outward appearance.”
“A nation’s progress is also measured by how it welcomes all people with disabilities and particular needs.”
“I dream of thousands of young people volunteering … I dream that a new generation of saints devoted to charity might be forged in Argentina!”
Later that day, his outdoor Mass at the Monumento de los Españoles in Palermo drew an estimated 2.5 million people. In his sermon, he lamented what Argentine families are enduring: “instability, social hardship, precarious employment, domestic violence, painful separations, and addictions that destroy young people’s futures and damage family relationships.”
At the Catholic University of Argentina, speaking to business owners, union leaders, teachers, Indigenous leaders and the cartoneros who pull recyclables from the city’s trash, he laid out Catholic social teaching point by point:
“To deprive a person of work is not simply to deny that person an income.”
The Church defends private property, he added, but “this right is always subject to a social mortgage,” because the land and its fruits were given by God for all of humanity. And:
“The economy… must be at the service of the person, and not the person at the service of the economy.”
He also warned that “artificial intelligence and unregulated automation can put countless jobs at risk.”
That evening, preaching Vespers with Argentina’s bishops and synodal teams at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires, he said pastors must know the real circumstances of their people — “the unemployed, young people forced to emigrate, the elderly who have been neglected” — and asked the bishops “to care for those living in poverty, who are unemployed or who lack decent housing.” He gave them the principles for every pastoral decision ahead: “the dignity of each person, the commitment to the universal destination of goods, the preferential option for the poor, and care for creation.”
“Dear brothers, support initiatives that benefit the people entrusted to your care, rejoice in everything that promotes the life of your people: honest work, care for those most in need, and institutions that responsibly serve the common good. Accompany those working for the integral development of every person.”
Earlier that afternoon, he had also sat down in private with five Argentines who had been abused by Catholic clergy or inside Church institutions.
Córdoba: a land of saints
On Tuesday, November 10, the Pope flew from Buenos Aires to Córdoba and celebrated Mass on the grounds of the Military Aviation School before about 650,000 people, according to local authorities. In his homily, he called Córdoba a land of saints, recalling St. José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero — the “Gaucho Priest” who rode his mule to the far edges of Argentina to minister to the poor — and Mama Antula, who in 2024 became Argentina’s first female saint.
“We are all called to holiness. These saints and blesseds have already fulfilled their mission on Earth. Today, it is our turn to follow the radiant example of holiness they have left with us.”
Quoting his predecessor Pope Francis, he said “the poor need God and people who express the power of Christian love in their lives.” And of the image presiding over the celebration:
“Presiding over this celebration is the image of the poor Christ. Father Brochero himself had it carved while lying on his sickbed, and the features of the people of this land are artistically reflected in Christ’s face.”
After Mass, in a private room behind the altar, he greeted 20 people chosen to represent Córdoba’s poor and marginalized — soup kitchen workers, rural laborers, advocates for survivors of human trafficking and a woman searching for relatives killed by the dictatorship.
What’s next
The trip runs through November 17, with Peru — the country where the Chicago-born Pope spent most of his ministry, and where he also holds citizenship — still to come. Twenty-four days after lung surgery, the Pope who made history by voting in an American election is now preaching, in his own words, that healthcare is a right, that authority is service, and that the economy must serve the person.
This is a follow-up to our October 30 post, “Pope Leo XIV Votes in the Midterms: A First in 2,000 Years of Church History.” Quotes as reported by the National Catholic Register, NCR, EWTN News, USA Today, the Associated Press and the Holy See Press Office.