An estimated 40,000 people poured into a city on the Uruguay River on Saturday for Pope Leo XIV's first Mass in South America, as the pontiff sought to raise the profile of the Catholic Church in Uruguay, the region's most secular country.

The crowd erupted in the stadium chant of "Ol, ol, ol, ol, Pope, Pope!" when Leo's plane landed in Paysand, in western Uruguay on the border with Argentina.

They cheered again, blew horns and waved yellow handkerchiefs when he arrived in his open-sided popemobile at the Mass site in the Parque Pars Londres, a sprawling green space on the southern edge of Paysand.