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MONTEVIDEO (RNS) — When Pope John Paul II visited Uruguay in 1987 and 1988, the country had long had a public policy promoting secularism, but Catholics had not yet become a minority in the country. Nearly four decades later, as Pope Leo XIV becomes the first pope since to return to the southeastern South American country, just 36% of the population is Catholic according to an August survey by Equipos Consultores.
Leo addressed that reality head on in his first speech in the country, asking that religion not be “confined to the private sphere” as he spoke with government and diplomatic officials. In 1919, as part of an effort to separate the church from the state, the Uruguayan government changed the names of more than 30 cities that had religious names and the names of public holidays — with Christmas Day celebrated as “Day of the family” and Holy Week celebrated as “Tourism week.”
Pew Research Center found in 2020 that Uruguay was the only country in Latin America without a Christian majority. Religiously unaffiliated people account for 52% of the population, while Christians make up just 44%.
Uruguay’s government has a model of secularism modeled after the French government, says Néstor Da Costa, director of the doctorate in religion, culture and public life program at the Universidad Católica del Uruguay (Catholic University of Uruguay). “We have a model of laïcité that is very restrictive, very permeated in society over a very long time, more than a century,” Da Costa said in Spanish, referring to a French principle that the state and religion are strictly separate.
Catholic scholars say that despite the country’s secularization, Leo’s visit will strengthen a Catholic community that remains committed to their faith. And religiously unaffiliated Uruguayans told RNS they retain a mix of skepticism and hope that the pope’s visit will bring some benefit to the country.
In the Equipos Consultores survey ahead of the papal visit, only 50% of Uruguayans expressed a favorable opinion of Leo or expected that the papal visit would bring a positive benefit for the country. Of the other 50%, a larger part were ambivalent while a minority held negative opinions.
Mara Ríos, an atheist notary student who was enjoying a mate tea in the park on Saturday (Nov. 7), told RNS in Spanish that she thought the visit was good for Montevideo because “they painted, they cut the grass, they fixed things,” but as for the pope himself, she felt largely “indifferent.” Though Ríos added she’d read somewhere that the pope had made homophobic comments and comments that “were backward in relation to women,” and she said that in “a country where we’re fairly advanced on social rights,” the pope shouldn’t wade into those topics.
Leo has not made any indication that he intends to change church teaching against homosexuality and abortion, or lift the prohibition on ordaining women, though he has elevated women to historic roles at the Vatican.
“What a shame that they only make those efforts when the pope comes and that they don’t cut the grass during the whole year,” she said.
Her boyfriend, Nathaniel Brumberg, also an atheist, was more optimistic. “It seems to me at a social and cultural level that it nourishes us a lot” as a country, he said in Spanish, calling the visit “historic.” Brumberg, a biotechnology engineering student, said he hoped the pope would come more frequently in the future and that it would have been good to have more visits in the past.
But for Uruguayan Catholics, the visit will be significant. “No one expects that the pope’s visit will grow our numbers, but yes, that the Uruguayan church will have an experience of interior strengthening, of renewal with the visit of the pope,” said Miguel Pastorino, a philosophy professor at the Catholic University of Uruguay, in Spanish. After a long wait after rumors of visits by Pope Francis, “The church waited for him with a lot of anxiety, with a lot of hope,” said Pastorino.
“The Uruguayan Catholic is a committed Catholic. He’s not a cultural Catholic who is comfortable in his situation,” said Pastorino. “It’s not like it gives much prestige in society being a Catholic.”
Saturday evening, Leo will hold a prayer vigil in the Estadio Centenario, the site of the first World Cup, which Uruguay won. “Soccer is a passion that we could say is our second religion. The first would be politics,” said Da Costa of Uruguayans. And despite the country’s declining portion of Catholics, the stadium is expected to be full. Da Costa said the free tickets were gone in three hours, with more people expected to be outside.
In the Uruguayan context, evangelization has been about “accompanying people in their processes, helping them to live and discover God in their lives,” rather than filling churches, Da Costa said.
Leo plans to carry out some of that accompaniment on Saturday with a visit to Casavalle, a poor neighborhood that has experienced violence, to hear the testimonies of local Catholics.
Rosario Hermano, who was part of organizing the visit as a member of the Caritas Uruguay Committee, told RNS in Spanish, “Casavalle is not just a periphery towards which the center of the church is moving, but also a place where the church can spread something fundamental about the Gospel.”
“The pope isn’t coming to bring God to Casavalle, but instead he will meet with God who is already there, who already lives among the poor,” she said. “His visit to Casavalle will publicly recognize people who tend to be invisible,” and who are stigmatized by the violence that they live through.
Hermano also hopes the visit will reach people who are not part of the church.
Cristián Rivero, who was also enjoying mate in the park, was raised Catholic. He told RNS he believes in God but he doesn’t believe in the church.
“The pope is coming, and great, but in the world there continues to be poverty,” he said in Spanish. “I don’t know how much the pope contributes to the world, beyond words.”
The nurse, who works with people with addictions, said that he thought the pope could take a greater role in addressing war and poverty. “The church has a lot of power in the world,” he said.
Rivero had not heard that Leo would be visiting Casavalle. “It’s a pretty complex neighborhood, with a lot of poverty, a lot of child abuse, a lot of delinquency.”
As he reflects on the visit, Rivero thinks about the 2007 film El baño del Papa, where people in an Uruguayan town go into debt because they expect Pope John Paul II’s visit will bring greater tourism revenue than it does. He doesn’t think that will happen with this visit, but ultimately, Rivero said, “I think that poverty in the world shouldn’t exist anymore.”
The Rev. Gustavo Morello, a professor of sociology at Boston College, emphasized that many Uruguayans maintain religious beliefs or practices, despite a complicated relationship with religious institutions and a longtime imposition of secularism by the state.
“How is it that after a state imposes secularization that atheists are only around 20% of the population,” Morello asked.