Pope Leo challenges secular Uruguay on abortion, euthanasia and suicide

(OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV landed Nov. 6 in Uruguay, Latin America’s most secular country, and used his first address to challenge the nation’s political leadership on abortion, euthanasia and a suicide rate that remains among the highest in the Americas.

The stop opened the pope’s 12-day journey through Uruguay, Argentina and Peru.

Speaking to President Yamandú Orsi, public officials and diplomats in Montevideo’s Plaza Independencia, Pope Leo framed his remarks around the bronze reliefs depicting the 1811 exodus led by national hero José Gervasio Artigas.

— ‘The unborn already belong to the human family’ —

Addresses to civil authorities are ordinarily among the most diplomatic and least explicitly religious speeches of a papal trip. Yet Pope Leo used the civic symbolism of the monument to address issues on which Church teaching diverges sharply from Uruguay’s public policies.

Reflecting on a figure of a mother holding a baby, the pope said “the unborn already belong to the human family,” adding that protecting unborn children must be accompanied by support for mothers, fathers and families.

The absolute dependence of the unborn on their mother “does not diminish the dignity to which they are entitled or the protection they deserve.”

Uruguay legalized abortion in 2012. Its Ministry of Public Health recorded 11,445 reported abortions in 2025, the highest annual figure since the law took effect and an increase from 11,232 in 2024. More than 129,000 were recorded from 2013 through 2025.

— Pope Leo: Society must care for people ‘until the natural end’ —

Pope Leo later turned to illness, disability, physical pain and the loss of autonomy, insisting that such circumstances do not reduce a person’s value. Society, he said, must provide the resources and care people need and accompany them “until the natural end.”

The comments came a year after Uruguay legalized euthanasia and approximately six months after the procedure became available. Preliminary figures indicate that about 12 people died by euthanasia during that period, while the country awaits the oversight commission’s first annual report.

Without citing statistics, Pope Leo also addressed suicide: “Loneliness, anxiety and the loss of hope can become so profound that a person no longer sees a reason to continue living,” he said. “Given the painful reality of suicide, it is clear that adequate healthcare, family ties, and the closeness of the community are inseparable.”

Uruguay recorded 668 deaths by suicide in 2025, a rate of 19.16 per 100,000 inhabitants. That was down from 21.35 in 2024 but remained roughly twice the latest comparable regional rate of 9.2 per 100,000 reported by the Pan American Health Organization.

The pope also praised Uruguay’s four decades of uninterrupted democracy and its transition to electricity generated almost entirely through renewable sources. He addressed education, employment, artificial intelligence, universal access to healthcare and economic development whose benefits reach the entire population.

Acknowledging the country’s secular identity, Pope Leo said state neutrality should protect freedom for believers and nonbelievers alike but does not require religion to be “confined to the private sphere.”

“As the Second Vatican Council teaches, no one should be compelled to act against his or her conscience or prevented from acting in accordance with it, whether in private or in public, individually or in association with others, within due limits,” Pope Leo said, quoting St. Paul VI’s 1965 declaration on religious freedom, “Dignitatis Humanae.”

The point carried particular weight in Uruguay, the region’s only country without a Christian majority: Pew Research Center estimated that 52% of its population was religiously unaffiliated in 2020.

“The Church wishes to continue offering the Uruguayan people what she herself has received,” the pope said, while cooperating with all who promote the common good and human dignity.

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