Pope Leo XIV plans to visit a parish in the Borro neighborhood of Uruguay MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay -- Lucía Pintos is training to become a teacher in Borro, a Uruguayan neighborhood hit hard by the spread of drug trafficking, where a parish that will welcome Pope Leo XIV in a few days serves as a fragile but much-needed refuge from violence. The pontiff will visit the Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, which builds homes, promotes job creation and supports addicts in their recovery. Neighborhoods like Borro live with the sound of gunfire and territorial disputes between drug dealers.
Concerns about violence have led the government to begin patrols with armored vehicles, which were originally donated by the United States for U.N. peacekeeping missions. Pablo Coimbra, the head of the Our Lady of Guadalupe parish. It’s bursts of machine-gun fire, and the bullets land wherever they land.” The Archbishop of Montevideo, Daniel Sturla, said that there is no other place in the South American country with such a strong Catholic presence as Borro.
A day after receiving a Vatican delegation in preparation for Leo’s visit, he toured the neighborhood with The . According to an official count, of the 98 homicides registered up to September in Montevideo — 13.5% more than in the same period last year — more than 46% occurred in Borro and surrounding neighborhoods. Uruguay still has a low homicide rate for the region, with about 10 homicides per 100,000 people last year.
In October 2025, Interior Minister Carlos Negro said that Uruguay had “epidemic homicide rates” and vowed to reduce them. As the dirt roads descend toward a stream adjacent to Borro, mud becomes omnipresent. It often seeps into nearby houses.
That landscape is now cut by a concrete road prepared for the papal visit. The narrow streets converge on a soccer field restored by the parish, where Lautaro Martínez, a promising young player, practices. However, training has been suspended these days as a precaution following recent shootings.
In this context, the church has become a refuge. Neighbors bring the wounded there because ambulances will only go as far as the church. Coimbra said that gangs used to expel families at gunpoint to set up drug dens, forcing them to seek refuge in the parish.
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