A regional encounter days before the papal visit
With less than two weeks to go before Pope Leo XIV arrives in Argentina, an official Vatican delegation will take part in a regional meeting with social movements from across Latin America. The gathering is scheduled for Tuesday, October 27, and Wednesday, October 28, at the Ciudad Papa Francisco in La Matanza, in Buenos Aires province, and is being organized by the Unión de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de la Economía Popular (UTEP) together with the Holy See.[S1][S2]
The event carries the slogan For a Magnificent Humanity. Its central purpose is to draw up a document setting out diagnoses and proposals on the problems facing popular sectors, and those conclusions are to be presented to the pontiff while he is in the country. The papal visit is scheduled for November 8 to 11. According to Agencia Noticias Argentinas, a private audience between the Church leader and leaders of the organization may also take place.[S1][S2]
Who is travelling from Rome
Sister Alessandra Smerilli, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, heads the delegation. She is joined by Father Flavio Lauría, Emilce Cuda of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, and Father Mattia Ferrari, general coordinator of the World Meeting of Popular Movements (EMMP).[S1][S2]
Poverty, debt and drug trafficking on the agenda
The meeting follows the September delivery to Leo XIV of a 72-page report on Argentina's social situation. That document warns of eroding purchasing power, rising household debt, mental health problems and the spread of drug trafficking in poor neighborhoods, and it describes how community kitchens, cooperatives and territorial organizations respond to these pressures.[S1]
Understand this article deeper
Building on that report, the sessions will work through five themes: social exclusion and human dignity; how employment is changing under automation and digital platforms; artificial intelligence and the concentration of power; the growth of drug-trafficking structures; and community organizing. The debates will be shaped by Magnifica Humanitas, the first encyclical of Leo XIV, read through the eyes of Latin American popular movements.[S1][S2]
A link inherited from Pope Francis
The World Meeting of Popular Movements was created in 2014 at the initiative of Pope Francis to open a channel between the Church and territorial organizations on different continents. Since then the Tierra, Techo y Trabajo agenda has become a main point of contact between social groups and the Vatican.[S1][S2]
Alejandro Gramajo, known as Peluca, UTEP's secretary general and a member of the EMMP political committee, said the movement began under Francis to put that agenda at the center, and argued that Leo XIV continues the legacy while sharpening the debate by focusing on technology and artificial intelligence and calling for governance built from subsidiarity. He added that the regional meeting aims to contribute to that discussion along the lines of Magnifica Humanitas.[S1][S2]
Holding the sessions in Buenos Aires reflects the weight Argentine social organizations have had in building this international space, and it fits into the calendar ahead of the papal trip. On Wednesday, once the final document is ready, the program closes with a pilgrimage to the Las 3T site in the Puerta de Hierro neighborhood, where a community mass will be celebrated.[S1][S2]
