by Laura Gómez Ruiz
Buenos Aires – “Your lives are not a burden on society; they are a blessing.” With these words, addressed to people with disabilities and those who care for them at the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione in Claypole, Pope Leo XIV began his first full day in Argentina, placing the emphasis on concern for the most vulnerable and the commitment to building a more just and fraternal society. During his various encounters on Monday, 9 November, he addressed the challenges facing families, the dignity of work, coexistence among religions and the mission of a Church called to stand close to those most in need.
Charity and the family: pillars of a more humane society
At the Cottolengo, the Pope was introduced to the life of the community, which is organized around three cities: Bethlehem, Nazareth and Bethany. He focused in particular on the significance of the latter: “In short, Bethany is a place that helps us move beyond individualism, a place where one feels loved and desires to love others in concrete ways.” Leo XIV thanked the residents and staff members, religious men and women, family members and volunteers for their daily commitment, recalling that “a nation’s progress is also measured by how it welcomes all people with disabilities and particular needs.” Finally, he addressed them with an invitation: “I dream that a new generation of saints devoted to charity might be forged in Argentina! Indeed, why shouldn’t all of you be among them? The love of Christ urges us on!” he exclaimed.
The Eucharistic celebration at the Monumento de los Españoles in Buenos Aires focused on the family, its role in society and its responsibility for passing on the faith. Leo XIV highlighted some of the difficulties confronting many families today: a lack of instability, social hardship, precarious employment, domestic violence, painful separations and addictions that destroy young people’s futures and damage family relationships. In the face of these challenges, he recalled that Christ is the foundation upon which families and society as a whole can find support. “Do not give in to those who dismiss the Christian family as outdated. On the contrary, today more than ever, it remains a pillar amid the many insecurities of our time,” he said.
The Holy Father also stressed that “in the intimacy of the home, faith is passed on along with life itself, through the simplest gestures”. Among the examples he cited were: saying a blessing before meals, a prayer before going to bed, forgiveness and mutual listening, grandparents teaching their grandchildren to pray and going to Mass on Sundays. “Indeed, the family is a privileged place for coming to know and encounter Christ,” he said, urging families to become protagonists in the work of evangelization: “The Church in Argentina needs you!”
The day before, during the first Uruguayan leg of his journey in Latin America, at the Mass in the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three, in Florida, Leo XIV had made a similar appeal to families, expressing particular gratitude to mothers and grandmothers who had safeguarded the faith and passed it on from generation to generation. “Mothers and grandmothers: Never tire of passing on the faith!” he urged them. Fathers and grandfathers, he reminded, have the important task of bearing witness to the faith through their lives, so that young people may see them praying, receiving the Sacraments, asking forgiveness and living honestly, even when this entails sacrifices.
Work, economy and the “universal destination of goods”
During his meeting with representatives of the world of work at the Catholic University of Argentina, the Pope reflected on human dignity and the social purpose of the economy. “The human person is the centre and the goal of all economic and social life and, therefore, the economy must be at the service of the person, and not the person at the service of the economy,” he said. Unemployment, he warned, entails far more than the loss of income: “To deprive a person of work is not simply to deny that person an income. It severely wounds their dignity, deprives them of the ability to contribute to society and plunges them into social exclusion.”
Addressing the universal destination of goods and the right to private property, he clarified that the latter “is always subject to a social mortgage”. The earth and its fruits, he recalled, have been given by God to sustain all of humanity. “We are not absolute owners, but custodians of a legacy that must be shared fairly,” he explained, calling for the removal of structural inequalities that marginalize the weakest and for due consideration to be given to our responsibility towards future generations.
Pope Prevost paid particular attention to popular movements, the popular economy and informal workers — waste-pickers, farmers and artisans – recognizing them as living expressions of the principle of subsidiarity. “They do not passively wait for State assistance; they organize themselves from the grassroots to build community-based solutions,” he observed, recalling their demands for “land, housing and work”. He also called for neither the State nor large corporations to absorb the initiatives and capacities of local communities and intermediate groups, but rather to support and strengthen them.
To business leaders, he proposed the example of Enrique Shaw, an Argentine Catholic whose Christian vision of business led him to “understood that industry was not just a productive mechanism or a means of accumulating capital, but a true community of people called to grow together”. He also stated that “the business vocation is a noble task when it is guided by the principle of the social function of property and capital”. He warned that when economic profit is established as the sole criterion of success, “a business becomes dehumanized and turns into a structure of sin that generates exclusion”.
Addressing trade unions and workers’ associations, he recalled their specific mission: to be “instruments of solidarity and cohesion, channels of cooperation between workers and businesses”. In particular, he emphasized that trade unions are indispensable institutions when they defend those who have no voice and resist the commodification of labor. He also urged them to keep their gaze on the “existential peripheries” and to build bridges towards precarious and informal workers, as well as those excluded from the official system.
Finally, turning to the challenges posed by technological transformation, Leo XIV warned of the risks that artificial intelligence and unregulated automation represent for employment. He recalled that “technology must always be subject to ethics; an algorithm cannot replace human discernment or the intrinsic value of a worker’s physical presence and effort”. The Pope concluded by outlining a shared horizon for the future: “defend the dignity of the human person, promote the common good, recognize the universal destination of goods, practice effective solidarity and responsible subsidiarity, so that together we may build the civilization of love”.
Dialogue, unity and reconciliation
During his meeting with representatives of Christian communities and various religious traditions at the Palacio San Martín, Leo XIV recalled that Argentina’s identity had been shaped by its indigenous peoples and successive waves of migration, which brought with them their own cultures and faiths. In this diversity, he observed, religions have never been a cause of division, but rather a meeting point and a source of shared commitment to society. He described them as “guardians of human dignity, expressions of our freedom, and places in which to cultivate hope”, and called for prayer to be translated into concrete concern for others: “Whenever we pray, therefore, we must care for those who live alongside us, making the words we utter authentic through renewed fraternity.”
Later, during the celebration of Vespers at the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Most Holy Trinity, together with the Argentine bishops and synodal teams, Leo XIV placed particular emphasis on unity and reconciliation. Reflecting on the relief on the Cathedral’s façade depicting Joseph’s reunion with his father Jacob and his brothers, he recalled how God can open up paths to life even where human beings have sown division. “Reconciliation requires us to acknowledge wounds, let go of resentment, and allow God’s grace to transform our relationships,” he said.
As examples of this commitment, he recalled the witness of the Argentine bishops Blessed Mamerto Esquiú, Enrique Angelelli and Eduardo Pironio, who worked for unity and peace. He also called on pastors to accompany families and to care for those living in poverty, who are unemployed or who lack decent housing. Among the people who must remain at the heart of their pastoral concern, he mentioned “elderly people living in abandonment, marginalized communities and people forced to emigrate”.
He urged the synodal teams to continue listening to one another and discerning together, but also to translate this journey into concrete decisions: “respect for the dignity of every person and commitment to the universal destination of goods, the preferential option for the poor and care for creation”.
Holiness: A call for everyone
During Holy Mass celebrated on the morning of Tuesday, 10 November, at 10 a.m. Argentine time , on the grounds of the Military Aviation School in Córdoba, Leo XIV centred his homily on the witness of Argentina’s saints and blesseds. “The city of Córdoba, the natural heir to the first episcopal see established in Argentina, has indeed been a home of saints,” he recalled, highlighting the variety of their charisms and missions. “They offer a polyphonic witness to the universal call to holiness of every baptized person: the call to be conformed to Christ,” the Pope said. He noted that their lives embody “the unity between a passion for the Gospel and a commitment to building a fraternal and compassionate homeland”.
Among these figures, the Pope focused particularly on Saint José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero, who found in prayer the strength that sustained his life, and María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, known as Mama Antula, who combined contemplation with service to others. Of the latter, he recalled that “the greatest act of fraternal charity is to bring others closer to God”. Two saints, two examples, two ways of identifying oneself with Christ.
Alongside them, Leo XIV gave thanks to God for the martyrs who confessed their faith even to the point of laying down their own lives. Among them, he remember Saint Héctor Valdivielso Sáez and the Argentinian Blesseds who suffered martyrdom during the Spanish Civil War and in the Argentine provinces of La Rioja and Salta. Among the shepherds, he mentioned Blessed Mamerto Esquiú and Cardinal Eduardo Pironio and remembered the foundresses of religious congregations, such as Saint Nazaria Ignacia. He also remembered the many other religious women, such as Blessed María Ludovica de Angelis and Blessed Crescencia Pérez, who, moved by ardent charity, dedicated their lives to the education of children and the care of the sick and laypeople who lived out their baptismal vocation to the fullest, loving God and their brothers and sisters in the simplicity of daily life. Among them are Saint Artémides Zatti, Blessed Ceferino Namuncurá and Blessed Laura Vicuña..
“Today, it is our turn to follow the radiant example of holiness they have left with us,” Leo XIV urged. “We celebrate this Holy Mass for the sanctification of the people of Argentina, for the sanctification of all of you. Open your hearts, and with God’s grace, go forth and be holy! : at school and in the town square, in family life and with friends, in the countryside and in the city, on the farm and in the office. Go and evangelize!”
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