Leo XIV in Claypole: "Your lives are a blessing to society"
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Fides News Agency
Leo XIV began his first full day in Argentina at the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione in Claypole, where he told people with disabilities and their carers that their lives are a blessing to society. The Pope also expressed the wish that a new generation of saints of charity would emerge in Argentina, according to Fides News Agency.
"Your lives are not a burden on society, they are a blessing," Pope Leo XIV told people with disabilities and their relatives at the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione in Claypole, near Buenos Aires, on Monday 9 November. He began his first full day in Argentina there, the Fides agency reports.
At the Cottolengo, which is organised into three "cities" (Bethlehem, Nazareth and Bethany), the Pope said that "the progress of a nation is also measured by the way it welcomes people with disabilities". He expressed the wish to see "a new generation of saints dedicated to charity" emerge in Argentina.
During the Mass at the Monumento de los Españoles in Buenos Aires, dedicated to the family, he spoke of the difficulties facing households: instability, job insecurity, domestic violence, painful separations and addictions. He urged the faithful not to give in to those who judge the Christian family to be outdated: "today more than ever, it remains a pillar amid the uncertainties of our time". According to him, faith is passed on in the intimacy of the home, along with life, through the simplest gestures.
This day precedes other stages of the trip, including the Pope’s challenge to the Argentine state in the Fiorito slum and a Mass before 650,000 faithful in Córdoba on 10 November.
