With an ode to mate, pope urges faithful in Uruguay to build bridges of fraternity and faith
Pope Leo XIV celebrated his first South American Mass in Paysandú, Uruguay, before an estimated 40,000 people, despite his recent lung cancer surgery. He urged Uruguayans to build bridges of faith, fraternity and encounter, using the shared ritual of drinking mate as a symbol of unity. Leo called on the country’s largely secular population to pass on the Catholic faith with creative courage. His Uruguay visit also included plans to highlight Church-supported housing and rehabilitation work in a Montevideo neighborhood affected by drug trafficking and gang violence.
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Pope Leo XIV used his first Mass in South America to urge Uruguayans to build bridges of faith and fraternity, invoking the shared ritual of drinking mate as a symbol of community. The Mass in Paysandú drew an estimated 40,000 people, including pilgrims from Argentina and Brazil, as Leo began a three-country tour after recent lung cancer surgery.
In his homily, Leo connected the Mass’s location near the bridge linking Uruguay and Argentina with a broader appeal for “bridges of faith, fraternity and encounter.” He described mate—the bitter herbal tea commonly shared from one gourd—as a practice that strengthens bonds and teaches people “to share and to be together.”
Leo said faith had been part of Uruguayan life from the country’s earliest days and called for it to be passed to future generations “with creative courage.” His visit sought to encourage people in Uruguay, described in the article as South America’s most secular country, to draw on Catholic faith in facing contemporary challenges.
The Vatican said more than 30,000 people had registered for the Mass and another 10,000 attended, despite rain and blustery weather. Many came from Uruguay, while others crossed from neighboring Argentina and Brazil; Paysandú’s position on the Uruguay River made it accessible to pilgrims from the Argentine side.
Some attendees said Leo’s decision to continue the 12-day tour after his Oct. 13 surgery moved them. Young Catholics also hoped the crowds would challenge perceptions that Uruguayans—especially young people—are uninterested in religion, while some non-Catholic attendees said they valued the pope’s message for humanity.
The Mass was dedicated to Blessed Jacinto Vera, a 19th-century priest and Uruguay’s first bishop, whom Leo had praised for traveling the country to help the poor. Later in the day, the pope was scheduled to visit a Montevideo neighborhood affected by drug trafficking and gang violence, where church programs work with municipal authorities on housing and addiction rehabilitation, and to hold a prayer vigil at Centenary Stadium.
After Uruguay, Leo’s itinerary was to take him to Buenos Aires, Luján and Córdoba in Argentina, followed by Peru, described in the article as his second homeland.
Catholic fraternity as a bridge between faith and secular society
Catholic fraternity can bridge faith and secular society when it is lived as practical solidarity, respect, and service—not demanded as agreement on religious belief. Its Christian source is deeper than civic goodwill: faith sees every person as a brother or sister before God. That conviction can motivate Catholics to work with people of different beliefs for the common good, while respecting genuine differences and the freedom of conscience. Pope Leo XIV’s reported appeal in Uruguay to build bridges of fraternity and faith can be understood in this light: evangelization is not only speaking about faith, but also making its human and social fruits visible.
Catholic fraternity is not merely a strategy for social harmony. Lumen Fidei describes faith as a light that shapes social relationships and sets people “on the path of brotherhood.” The reason is theological: human beings share a common origin and dignity before God, and Christian faith sees this divine gift as fulfilled in Christ.
“Faith teaches us to see that every man and woman represents a blessing for me, that the light of God’s face shines on me through the faces of my brothers and sisters.”
This belief gives fraternity a universal reach. Catholics do not reserve respect and concern for fellow believers; they are called to recognize each person’s dignity. Pope Benedict XVI expressed the public implication directly: believers and non-believers should be free to live according to their convictions, “fraternal in their relations with one another.” He urged people to overcome fear and indifference through respect, help, and love, especially toward those who are poor, lonely, ill, unemployed, or marginalized.
Fraternity can create common ground without pretending that religious differences do not matter. Benedict XVI’s account of a “just secularity” holds together two principles: people should be free to live by their convictions, and they should treat one another as brothers and sisters. Fraternity therefore does not require non-believers to adopt Catholic belief, nor does it require Catholics to hide theirs. It asks both to meet one another with respect and to seek shared goods.
John Paul II likewise distinguished universal brotherhood from uniformity. He described it as “mutual understanding, respect and solidarity,” and noted that Catholics are called to cooperate with all people of good will in serving the common good. This is the bridge’s practical character: cooperation can be real even when people disagree about God, morality, or the foundations of public life.
The bridge is not a compromise in which faith is reduced to vague niceness. The Congregation for Catholic Education says the Church has a responsibility to contribute its “heritage of truths and values” to civic life and to the building of a fraternal humanism. Catholic participation in public life is therefore neither withdrawal nor an attempt to impose belief by force. It is the contribution of convictions through education, service, public argument, and personal example.
A bridge is credible when people can cross it. For Catholics, this means that fraternity must show itself in concrete service, not remain a slogan. John Paul II pointed to Catholic involvement in education, health care, and social services as ways the Church serves the wider public. Benedict XVI’s address similarly directs attention to relationships with people on the margins, where solidarity becomes more than an abstract principle.
The sources also caution against separating material assistance from personal solidarity. A scholarly study of Catholic social teaching argues that providing bread while withholding friendship and solidarity is not the fullness of Christian love. It presents fraternity as a vocation expressed through mercy and concern for suffering neighbors. In public terms, this means Catholic service should honor people as persons, not treat them merely as recipients of aid or instruments of a religious message.
The Church’s deepest school of fraternity is the Eucharist. It gathers Catholics into communion with Christ and with one another; that communion is not identical to all social relationships, but it forms habits that can serve society: mutual respect, cooperation, forgiveness, generosity, and care for the common good. A study of Eucharistic communion draws on the teaching that the Eucharist builds up the Church and, in doing so, creates human community.
The same study links Eucharistic worship to civic responsibility: participation in the Eucharistic sacrifice can form people for the sacrifices required by the common good. The implication is important: Catholic fraternity is not simply a church-internal feeling. Worship should shape how Catholics act beyond the church doors—how they listen, serve, deliberate, and work alongside others.
Fraternity does not guarantee that social divisions will disappear. Christian history itself, Lumen Fidei acknowledges, is a history of brotherhood “albeit not without conflict.” Nor does a Catholic account of fraternity claim that every disagreement can be resolved by goodwill alone. It does, however, reject the idea that disagreement makes mutual respect and cooperation impossible.
The bridge also asks something of Catholics. Christian communities must embody the reconciliation they commend to society. A Church that speaks of fraternity while tolerating indifference, exclusion, or contempt undermines its witness. Conversely, communities that remain united across differences and difficulties can offer a visible sign that a deeper communion is possible. The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life describes such communities as witnesses to the transforming power of the Gospel and as signs that point beyond themselves.
Thus, Catholic fraternity bridges faith and secular society not by erasing the distinction between them, but by translating faith into public love: respect for conscience, recognition of human dignity, service to those in need, and cooperation for the common good. Its aim is not simply to make Catholics acceptable to secular society, or to make society religious. It is to make encounters across difference more truthful, humane, and open to solidarity—while allowing the Christian source of that solidarity to be honestly proclaimed.