Pope will wrap up Argentina tour with a visit to a prison and a shrine before heading home to Peru

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Pope Leo XIV will wrap up his visit to Argentina with two poignant moments on Wednesday — a meeting with inmates at a prison with a history linked to the country’s military dictatorship, and a final Mass at Argentina’s national shrine.

Both sites have important sentimental connections to Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis. But Leo's final Argentine stops will pale in comparison to the emotional highlight of his South American trip, when he returns home later Wednesday to Peru.

A massive national party is planned to greet Leo, who spent over two decades as a missionary priest and bishop in Peru. He is known to Peruvians as Padre Robert and is beloved for ministering to poor communities, especially in times of crisis.

A meeting with inmates as Francis did

In Buenos Aires, Leo was scheduled to visit the Devoto Prison, where Francis often ministered when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. Francis celebrated Masses, visited cellblocks housing inmates with AIDS and washed the feet of prisoners during the annual Holy Week ritual.

The prison, inaugurated in 1927, is currently undergoing its definitive closure and transfer of its more than 1,000 inmates to a new penitentiary complex.

During the last military dictatorship (1976–1983), it functioned as a clandestine detention and torture center and was designated as a Memory Site in 2012, to ensure the military repression is not forgotten.

Human rights activist lawyers have petitioned the courts to prevent any decision involving the sale or disposal of the prison’s land and facilities once all inmates are transferred, saying “the space must be preserved until the investigations regarding the crimes against humanity that occurred” there are finalized.

In 1978, 65 common prisoners were killed in a massacre that was later named the Masacre del Pabellón Séptimo (Seventh Pavilion Massacre). The military dictatorship officially covered up the incident, but the courts proved that it was an act of state violence.

In December 2025, a federal court handed down 25-year prison sentences to former prison chiefs Juan Carlos Ruiz and Horacio Martín Galíndez for the torture inflicted on 153 detainees and the deaths of 65 of them as a result of the fire that broke out during the massacre and the violent repression inflicted on the inmates. The convicted men were over 90 years old when they received their sentences.

Leo has carried on Francis’ legacy of meeting with inmates during his foreign trips, to remind them that they are not alone and are still beloved children of God. His last such visit, at a prison in Equatorial Guinea, provided some of the most chilling moments of his pontificate, when the inmates were forced to sing and dance for him in the pouring rain.

A final Mass at Argentina's national shrine

After the prison visit, Leo will make a pilgrimage to the Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Luján, dedicated to Argentina’s patron saint.

The municipality of Luján, about 72 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of Buenos Aires, urged pilgrims to arrive days in advance due to the sheer scale of the event and the extensive security and logistical deployment.

The basilica hosts one of the greatest demonstrations of faith and religious devotion in Argentina. Each October, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims walk there from Buenos Aires and other nearby towns to give thanks or make requests to the Virgin of Luján, to whom Francis was particularly devoted.

This year’s pilgrimage took place under persistent rain. And yet more than 2.8 million people took part, a record for the shrine, municipal authorities said.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.