The 52nd Youth Pilgrimage to Luján took place on Saturday, October 3, and Sunday, October 4, about 60 kilometers from Liniers to the Basilica (Infobae, Ámbito). It rained on Saturday and the sun came out on Sunday. Infobae estimated more than two million pilgrims; DailyDrop saw no official count. Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva presided over the Mass and said the country is accumulating “pending embraces” and that disparagement and violence must be left behind (Infobae, Perfil). Days earlier he had said that Pope Leo XIV will find “a wounded Argentina” with a high proportion of very poor people (La Nación, Infobae). He cited the 32.3% poverty of the first half, equivalent to 15.4 million people. The papal visit is placed between November 8 and 11 (La Nación, Perfil).
The pilgrimage is the largest annual mobilization of the Argentine Church and works as a social thermometer. This year it came with poverty on the rise and a Government at odds with the archbishop, a few weeks before a papal visit that politics will follow closely.
If you have plans for the long weekend in November or need to get around Buenos Aires, Córdoba or Luján between the 8th and the 11th, it is worth following the official schedule once it is published, because there will be road closures and security operations.
The Church plays a role of social support, and it is legitimate for it to put poverty at the center ahead of a papal visit. The Indec data back its diagnosis.
The Government maintains that falling inflation is the basis for reducing poverty and that there is a political reading in the messages of the Church leadership, something the Church rejects.
The tone of the Church and the official response are likely to harden as November approaches. To watch: whether the Government publishes the Pope’s official agenda, who receives him at each stop, and whether the next poverty or activity figure changes the climate before the visit.
Infobae, Ámbito, Perfil, La Nación (Oct. 2–5, 2026)
A crowd completed the Pilgrimage to Luján, and Archbishop García Cuerva spoke of “pending embraces” a month before Pope Leo XIV’s visit
The 52nd Youth Pilgrimage ended on Sunday at the Basilica. With poverty at 32.3% in the first half, the Church expects the Pope to find “a wounded Argentina,” and relations with the Government remain tense.
The 52nd Youth Pilgrimage to Luján took place on Saturday, October 3, and Sunday, October 4. It set out from the San Cayetano church in Liniers and covered about 60 kilometers to the Basilica, according to Infobae and Ámbito. It rained and the temperature dropped on Saturday, but the sun came out on Sunday. Infobae estimated that more than two million people took part; the Church had anticipated a figure similar to last year’s, which its archbishop put at more than one million. DailyDrop found no official count from the Shrine, so the figure is attributed to that estimate.
The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge García Cuerva, presided over the main Mass and said the country is accumulating “pending embraces.” He called for an end to the “wounds of disparagement” and to violence, according to Infobae and Perfil. Days earlier he had warned that Pope Leo XIV will find “a wounded Argentina,” in crisis and with many people who are “very poor,” according to Infobae and La Nación. He cited the Indec figure of 32.3% poverty in the first half, about 15.4 million people, with 7.5% in extreme poverty.
The Pope would visit the country between November 8 and 11, stopping in Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Luján, according to La Nación and Perfil. Infobae reported that the Government has built up discontent with the archbishop, with disagreements over the Land Law, the disability emergency, the rise in poverty and the use of social media. The Casa Rosada separates that tension from its relationship with the Church. No complete official agenda has been published yet.