Pope Leo XIV denounced this Saturday, November 7, in the parish of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in the Casavalle neighborhood of Montevideo, that there are Uruguayan children who do not go to school for fear of not returning home and mothers who lack the means to feed their children. He did so during the meeting with the social reality of the neighborhood, one of the most affected by insecurity in the capital, according to the text published by the Holy See.
“We cannot pass by when we know that there are children in Uruguay who do not go to school for fear of not returning. We cannot silence our conscience when we see that a mother does not have the means to feed her children,” said the Pope, adding that one cannot ignore that, around him, many people suffer, alone and vulnerable.
A child should not go to bed hungry
The Pontiff insisted that the country’s wealth makes this reality even more unjust. “A child in this country—a land so rich in resources—should not have to go to sleep hungry, nor should have to give up an education and a dignified future because of the insecurity that reigns in the streets,” he stated. “Much less should they have to endure violence to the point of losing their lives,” he concluded.
To raise the issue, Pope Leo XIV turned to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10, 29-37) and quoted Francis in Fratelli tutti (no. 69), which reminds us that every day we choose between being good Samaritans or indifferent travelers who pass by. He closed his intervention with the Gospel sending “Go, and do the same” (Lk 10, 37) and entrusted the community to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Church, civil society and State, together
The Pope asked that the Church and Uruguayan civil authorities work together to protect human dignity and the common good, so that no child goes hungry or suffers violence. In that sense, he urged the faithful to shake off their inertia and not respond with indifference to the suffering of families.
At the beginning of the event, Cardinal Daniel Sturla, Archbishop of Montevideo, the parish priest, Pablo Coimbra, and Carmen Albana Sanz welcomed him. Angélica, Alan and Katherine also offered testimonies. Angélica spoke about the life of Father Cacho, whom the Pope remembered for his work of building bridges and fostering encounter.
Pope Leo XIV also referred to the housing project promoted by the parish for low-income families, whose financing he contributed to through benefactors of the Papal Foundation. He ended with a personal memory: his special affection for the Virgin of Guadalupe, since he received his episcopal ordination on her feast day.
Second event of an intense day in Montevideo
The visit to Casavalle took place on the same day that the Pontiff delivered his first speech in Uruguay in Montevideo, in which, as reported by InfoVaticana, he defended the unborn in a country with free abortion. That same night he spoke to young people at the Centenario Stadium.
While the pro-life speech was addressed to the authorities, the one in Casavalle was delivered in a specific periphery, among those who suffer daily from street violence. The Pope did not limit himself to a general diagnosis: he named the two most visible wounds, that of children without school and that of mothers without bread, and placed them before the State and the Church as a shared responsibility.