The president of Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, told the media that Pope Leo XIV “very much wants” to go to Uruguay, after the audience held this Friday at the Vatican.
“We even analyzed how his predecessor (Pope Francis) kept that aspiration of going to the Río de la Plata, it could not be realized. He (León XIV) may go to the Río de la Plata, that is, to Buenos Aires, and he would like to go to Uruguay, of course,” said the president after his meeting with the Holy Father.
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“During the cordial conversations held at the Secretariat of State, the good bilateral relations were highlighted, as well as the desire to strengthen them even further. The valuable contribution that the Church offers to the Country was not failed to be highlighted, particularly in the areas of education and the fight against poverty,” says a note from the Press Office of the Vatican.
The text also specifies that “issues of an ethical nature and the demographic problem were also addressed.” Although the text does not specify the specific topics, the meeting occurs after the Senate of Uruguay approved, two days ago, the law that opens the doors to euthanasia in the country.
A use of the presidency of Uruguay points out that the president said, in a press conference after the meeting, that he spoke about the issue with the Pope “knowing what each of us thought; we told him about the process of discussing the law and we talked, in the future, after the positions were clarified, how to continue working on such complex issues.”
Leo XIV receives the President of Uruguay 🇺🇾
Pope Leo XIV has received the president of Uruguay, His Excellency. Mr. Yamandú Orsi, who subsequently met with the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. During the conversations, the good… pic.twitter.com/7r4tYOnQtT
— ACI Prensa (@aciprensa) October 17, 2025
“I saw him with a very open mind, but not in a ‘this is not discussed’ position; beyond the fact that Uruguay decided, you always have to have an open mind to understand the other, regardless of whether one shares it or not,” Orsi added.
The norm, which had been approved by the deputies in August, awaits the promulgation or veto of the president of the Frente Amplio, the party that promoted the legislative initiative. If he decides to veto it, he would be the second president of a left-wing party to decide to veto a law. In 2008, the now deceased Tabaré Vásquez vetoed the abortion law.
The current Uruguayan president, accompanied by two ministers and diplomatic representatives, also met with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Vatican, and Mons. Daniel Pacho, Undersecretary for the Multilateral Sector of the Section for Relations with States and International Organizations.
Orsi gave Pope Leo a sculpture by the Uruguayan artist Pablo Atchugarry, titled dove of peacetwo meters long, made of cast bronze in workshops in the Italian city of Verona, which will be placed in the Vatican Gardens.
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.