Pope Leo XIV in Buenos Aires: Mass with 2 to 2.5 Million Faithful, Homily on Family and Precarious Work

On Monday, November 9, Pope Leo XIV celebrated an open-air Mass in Buenos Aires before a crowd estimated at between 2 and 2.5 million people. In the homily he spoke about the family and about “precarious work”, among the hardships that test Argentine families.¹²³ The celebration was the second stop of the Pontiff’s trip to South America.² Argentine President Javier Milei followed the Mass from the front row.²⁴

How many people attended the Mass

Crowd estimates differ. The agency AGI writes that two million people took part, citing local authorities.³ MercoPress, by contrast, reports 2.5 million people, again according to local authorities. The same figure is given by Repubblica, Sky TG24, Il Fatto Quotidiano, El País and Le Monde.¹⁵²⁶⁷⁴ According to El País and Le Monde, it is the best-attended Mass of the pontificate of Leo XIV, who has been in office for eighteen months. Il Fatto Quotidiano writes that never before had so many faithful attended a celebration led by the Pope.²⁶⁷ MercoPress adds that no pontiff had celebrated a Mass in Argentina since John Paul II’s visit in 1987.⁴

How the day unfolded

Thousands of people arrived during the night between Sunday and Monday around the Monument of the Spaniards, where the stage had been set up, and many slept on the spot. The day had been declared a national holiday.³⁴ Giant screens, 33 in all, stretched over more than two kilometers and carried the ceremony to the crowd, which also filled the nearby streets. Flags of Uruguay, Chile, Brazil and Paraguay flew beside the Argentine ones.⁴ The Pope reached Palermo park in Buenos Aires at about 11.30 a.m., after visiting the Little Cottolengo Don Orione, a facility that assists people with disabilities and addictions.²⁴ In the front row, besides Milei, sat his sister Karina Milei, secretary general of the presidency, and Jorge Macri, governor of the city of Buenos Aires, who the day before had given the Pope the keys to the city.² El País reports that in some parts of the park there were short bursts of whistling and protest as Milei appeared on the big screens, while the mention of Pope Francis, who died last year, drew a prolonged ovation.⁴

What Leo XIV said in the homily

The Pope recalled that families sometimes go through difficult times: instability, social problems, “precarious work”, domestic violence, painful separations and addictions that wear down relationships among family members.²³ He added that, amid these sufferings, “the Word of God shines for us with hope”. For Leo, Christ is the “rock” that holds up the house, protecting it from storms.²³ On the family, he said that in Argentine history and society it has been the setting in which to pass on faith, human virtues, a culture of work, respect for the elderly, defense of life and faithfulness to one’s word.²⁴ He then urged people not to resign themselves to those who claim that the Christian family is outdated, because today, “more than ever”, it represents a cornerstone amid the many precarious conditions of our time.⁵² The Mass fell on the feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the seat of the Bishop of Rome, which the Pope described as a sign of unity and communion for the Church.³

What he had said before the Mass

The day before, in his first speech to the authorities, the Pope had said that the economy has to serve the human person.²⁴ At the Little Cottolengo he asked that the gifts received be put at the service of the smallest and the needy, so that the “city of charity” may succeed in breaking down the boundaries of selfishness. He added that the values of dignity, inclusion and fraternal friendship have much to say to societies often driven by the pursuit of economic success or the cult of physical appearance.²

Why it matters

Il Fatto Quotidiano notes that the Pope spoke about precarious work in front of Milei, whom it describes as ultraliberal, and that the day before he had already called for an economy at the service of people. The theme thus runs through several addresses of the visit, not just the homily.²⁴ In the homily, however, precarious work appears within a list of family hardships, and the address remains focused on the family.²³ The local authorities’ estimates of attendance range from two million to two and a half million, a difference of half a million people.³⁴

This article was written by artificial intelligence from the sources cited, without human review. Automatic newsroom by Redazia.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Papa Leone, messa con 2,5 milioni di fedeli a Buenos Aires. Nell’omelia evoca il “lavoro precario”, la Repubblica · Esteri, 2026-11-09 ↩ ↩²

2. Buenos Aires, due milioni e mezzo di fedeli alla messa di Papa Leone. Il lavoro precario al centro della sua omelia, Il Fatto Quotidiano, 2026-11-09 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

3. Oltre 2 milioni di fedeli a Buenos Aires per la messa di Papa Leone: “La famiglia cristian…, agi.it, 2026-11-09 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

4. Some 2.5 million people attend Leo XIV’s Mass in Buenos Aires, authorities say, MercoPress, 2026-11-10 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹

5. Papa in Argentina: “Famiglie distrutte da lavoro precario”, Sky TG24 ↩ ↩²

6. León XIV celebra la misa más masiva de su pontificado con 2,5 millones de fieles en Buenos Aires, El País, 2026-11-10 ↩ ↩²

7. En Argentine, le pape Léon XIV célèbre une messe devant 2,5 millions de fidèles et rencontre des victimes de violences sexuelles, Le Monde, 2026-11-10 ↩ ↩²