Standing in the popemobile, Pope Leo XIV waved to crowds lining the route before stepping down to greet people waiting near the entrance. Footage shows him walking past the faithful, acknowledging those who had come to see him, then pausing in the chapel before the relic of St Luigi Orione’s heart.
At the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione in Claypole, in Almirante Brown partido some 30km south of Buenos Aires, the pope unveiled a commemorative plaque and toured part of the 50-hectare site, which houses more than 400 people with disabilities in 16 homes. Welcomed by Bishop Jorge Rubén Lugones of Lomas de Zamora and the centre’s director, Brother Jorge David Silanes, he told residents their lives “are not a burden for society, they are a blessing”, and said a nation’s progress is measured by how it welcomes people with disabilities.
The visit forms part of his 12-day tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. Argentina is the homeland of his predecessor, Pope Francis, and had not hosted a reigning pontiff since John Paul II in 1987. Leo XIV arrived in Buenos Aires on Sunday 8 November, welcomed by President Javier Milei at Jorge Newbery. The choice of Don Orione, founded in 1935 as a “city of charity”, turned attention on care services at a moment when disability funding is politically contested.