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Pope Leo XIV begins his first trip to Latin America this Friday in a country where only a third of the people define themselves as Catholic, abortion and euthanasia are legal, and Christmas is officially called Family Day.
This is Uruguay, the most secular country in Latin America.
In its streets, the enthusiasm of some for the arrival of the pontiff contrasts with the disinterest of those who avoid religious identification, who according to surveys are close to half of Uruguayans.
"Nothing, zero," answers Soledad Naya, a 43-year-old industrial designer in Montevideo, when asked if she will follow the Pope's activities: although she comes from a Catholic family, she defines herself as an atheist.
A few meters from the Centenario stadium, where a large stage is being built for León to conduct a vigil before some 60,000 faithful on Sunday, Margarita Bentancour also says she has no expectations for this visit, despite being a believer.
"I don't like churches," explains this 59-year-old domestic worker. "Jesus, when he had to help and do, he didn't need so much."
Leo
On Sunday afternoon the Pope is scheduled to travel to Argentina and on Thursday to Peru, where he lived for decades, two countries whose constitutions invoke God and establish a link of support for Catholicism without declaring an official religion.
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In Uruguay, the Constitution that came into force in 1919 declared that the State "does not support any religion" and formally separated it from the Church, after a process of secularization that began in the 19th century that would mark its society to this day.
This country of 3.4 million inhabitants, where Catholics have decreased without the evangelical churches being able to attract them as in other parts of Latin America, poses, according to experts, a special challenge to the Pope on his trip to the most Catholic region in the world.
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"Uruguay offers a glimpse into the religious future of other Latin American nations as younger generations distance themselves from organized religion," says Andrew Chesnut, a professor of Catholic studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.
This specialist in Latin American religious history adds that "the main challenge for León will be to demonstrate the continued relevance of Catholicism in a country where the Church has relatively little cultural or political influence."
"His visit will also test whether the first American pope, based on his extensive pastoral experience in Peru, can reconnect with Catholics far from the Church and help stop the exodus that changed the religious landscape of Latin America," Chesnut tells BBC Mundo.
"Self-censorship"
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This is the third time that a pope has arrived in Uruguay, after the visits of John Paul II in 1987 and 1988, when the country recovered democracy after a military dictatorship of more than a decade.
It is also León's fifth apostolic trip since he began his pontificate in May 2025, after the death of his Argentine predecessor Francisco, the first Latin American pope in history.
Uruguayan Cardinal Daniel Sturla points out that the Pope's main objective is "to confirm his Catholic brothers and the unity of the Church in the faith."
In his opinion, in Uruguay human life "sometimes is not appreciated in all its beauty, value, dignity."
"This also has to do with the reality of our country, with the low birth rate, the high suicide rate, the approval of laws such as abortion and euthanasia," Sturla, archbishop of Montevideo, tells BBC Mundo.
In 2012, Uruguay decriminalized the voluntary interruption of pregnancy in the first 12 weeks, a measure that minimized the deaths of women from clandestine abortions.
And last year it was the first country in Latin America to regulate by law "dignified" or assisted death for adults in the terminal stage of an irreversible disease.
These norms, which the Catholic Church opposed, follow a long tradition of social liberalism in Uruguay, which in this century also legalized homosexual marriage or marijuana, and in 1913 was a regional pioneer in allowing divorce by the woman's sole will.
More than a century ago, the country also removed crucifixes from public hospitals, suppressed religious teaching in State classrooms and changed the official name of holidays: Easter became Tourism Week and December 25 became Family Day, although it continued to be popularly called Christmas.
In the most recent annual Latinobarómetro survey, Uruguay has the lowest proportion of people who define themselves as Catholic among 17 Latin American countries: 35%, far from 67% in Peru or 55% in Argentina, the regional average.
That represents a sharp decline in Catholicism since 1990, when 60% of Uruguayans included themselves in that religion, a change that experts attribute to various reasons.
Sturla recognizes that the Church has been free to act in the country, although he maintains that there was "a certain cornering" of the institution and its faithful.
"There is a kind of Catholic self-censorship, because suddenly being Catholic, talking about faith, is not so well regarded," he says. "That makes Catholics themselves sometimes withdraw a little, and I think that a papal visit helps to express the faith more publicly."
Controversy and expectations
León's arrival in Uruguay also generated controversy when the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Rodrigo Goñi (of the conservative National Party), proposed illuminating the exterior of the Legislative Palace with the colors of the Vatican.
Other deputies then warned that this could violate the secularism of republican institutions, and the initiative seemed to founder.
In Uruguay, religious manifestations usually remain in the private sphere, but the Pope's visit will attract public attention.
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In the central Plaza Independencia in Montevideo, in front of the headquarters of the Executive Branch, a stage was set up to welcome León, who will speak there before meeting privately with the leftist president Yamandú Orsi.
According to Latinobarómetro, the pontiff has a popular rating in Uruguay of five on a scale of zero to 10, the second lowest in the region after Venezuela.
In August, half of Uruguayans expected that the Pope's arrival would have a positive impact on the country, according to a survey by the firm Equipos.
Some sought to do business with the visit: in the city of Florida, about 100 kilometers north of Montevideo, they rented balconies for up to US$400 to watch the mass that León will celebrate in the main square on Sunday.
"I don't believe (in religions), but the coming is respected, he is a global personality," says Víctor Figueroa, a 56-year-old delivery driver, while doing his job on the streets of Montevideo.
In Casavalle, a popular area in the north of the city with higher poverty and homicide rates than in other neighborhoods, they also await the papal visit on Saturday afternoon to show the daily reality and various social works carried out by the Church there.
"Waiting for (León) to arrive and at least give some relief in this neighborhood, in the aggressiveness," says Estrella Cuadrado, a 50-year-old street vendor who has lived half her life in Casavalle and notices that insecurity is getting worse. "You're talking to one, after a while they come and you don't give a shot."
The Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe neighborhood parish, like other Catholic centers in Uruguay, displays on its exterior a poster with the image of León and the official motto of his visit: "I announce great joy to you."
At the southern end of the city, in the wealthy, coastal neighborhood of Pocitos, Matilde Ibarguren is pleased with the Pope's arrival, although she and her family have no religion.
"Even though we are few and secular," reasons this 20-year-old student, "that he comes here means that he knows that in Uruguay there are also people who value him and appreciate his word."
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