Pope Leo XIV ended a visit to Uruguay on Sunday with a Mass before some 30,000 people in the city of Florida, then flew to Buenos Aires, the second stop on a regional tour, MercoPress reported¹.

At a shrine of the Virgin of the Thirty-Three on her feast day, the pope told Catholics not to wait for people who have left the Church to return on their own, according to the Montevideo-based agency¹.

"We cannot always wait for those who have drifted away to return on their own," MercoPress quoted him as saying¹.

The report said the visit was the first by a pope to Uruguay in 38 years, since John Paul II in 1988, and that in just over two days Leo XIV also spoke to authorities in Montevideo, celebrated Mass in Paysandú, visited Casavalle and the Catholic University, and led a vigil at Centenario Stadium¹.

MercoPress said he had questioned Uruguay's abortion and euthanasia laws in the Montevideo speech and had warned about risks of technology¹.

Florida Mayor Carlos Enciso said the pope's presence at the traditional pilgrimage was rare in what he called the country's most secular setting, according to the report¹.

In Buenos Aires, MercoPress said, the pope is due to pay tribute to Gen. José de San Martín, meet President Javier Milei at the Casa Rosada and address authorities at the Palacio Libertad, in what it described as the first papal visit to Argentina since 1987¹.

Independent confirmation of crowd sizes, the full homily text and the Argentine schedule was not in the MercoPress account reviewed¹.