00:09Hello, join us. As we know Pope Leo XIV is undergoing a 12-day visit to Latin America
00:16starting precisely at this moment in Uruguay, then he's going to travel to Argentina and after
00:22that he's going to Peru. Precisely to go deeper into the importance of this Papal visit, we have
00:29a special guest with us, Juan Raúl Ferreira, Ambassador of Uruguay to the Holy Sea. Hello, Juan Raúl.
00:36Thank you very much for joining us today and precisely in the context of this important visit.
00:43Thank you. It's a great honor for me to be here and it's a great pleasure to be in my
00:49home country
00:51the day that the Pope arrived in Uruguay and follow his visit step by step.
00:57Juan Raúl, what do you think is important precisely this visit precisely in the current
01:03geopolitical context that Latin America is facing at this moment?
01:10Well, I would say for Uruguay as a country, as a community, it's very important that he started his
01:17visit to America here. He has two homelands in the continent, the United States where he was born
01:29and Peru, his adopted country and he adopted patria, homeland. And I think that the fact that he
01:42he chose to start in Uruguay, which is a small country, the smallest in South America,
01:49which is a lay country, not only not too Catholic, but even Catholics are with have a great strong
02:00lay tradition, speaks a lot about the decision. For Uruguay, for some people, it may have been a surprise.
02:09I have to confess I wasn't surprised. It follows his tradition, his way to approach his humbleness.
02:25But the fact of the matter is that Uruguay is the only country in South America that Pope Francis did
02:34not
02:35visit. He did not visit Argentina either, but for reasons we don't want to get into, but everybody knows.
02:42But he visited all border countries like Peru, like Chile, like Brazil. But he did not come to Uruguay
02:52because Montevideo is too close to Buenos Aires. He would have been very offensive to the Argentine
02:57authorities if he had come to. So Uruguay paid a debt that did not belong to Uruguay. I think this
03:07this was a heavy argument for his decision. But above all, I think he wanted to show two things.
03:14I don't know if deliberately, but it came to be true.
03:18One is that a lay country may awake in this explosion of popular solidarity, popular participation,
03:31happiness that the people showed yesterday and is showing right now in Paisandu.
03:36And the other thing is that he may use Uruguay as his starting point in America for issues,
03:49to touch themes, peace, well, a religious message. It's obvious he's a religious leader.
03:58But above all, he has been received as a head of state. And as a head of state,
04:02he touched issues like peace, the need of Latin America to unite, not to radicalize and to have this
04:12profound deep hold between different ideologies and extreme positions that is hurting so much the
04:22soul of Latin America. He may have a chance to conduct more religious oriented messages in Argentina
04:30and in Peru. And he will finish in Peru his homeland in a trip that will be a little longer.
04:37But it's a great honor for Uruguay. He will spend as much time in Uruguay as in Argentina. It is
04:4430 times
04:47huger. It has much more 30 million inhabitants instead of two and a half million.
04:53So it's a blessing for Uruguay in all sense, even in the lay sense of the word blessing.
