Catholic faithful in Argentina make pilgrimage to Luján ahead of Pope Leo XIV's visit

Exhausted but exhilarated, supported by fellow pilgrims or leaning on walking sticks, thousands of Argentines arrived at the shrine of the Virgin of Luján on Sunday after a 60-kilometre pilgrimage from Buenos Aires, just over a month before Pope Leo XIV is due to visit the site.

In the early hours of Sunday, the towers of the neo-Gothic basilica loomed through the mist as thousands of faithful arrived, taking part in one of Argentina's largest popular expressions of Catholic faith.

Around the site, pilgrims slept on pavements or tended to swollen, blistered feet as they watched a tide of newly arrived faithful carrying flags bearing images of the Virgin and banners from their parishes.

Alexis Vaquer, a 42-year-old IT worker, arrived at the shrine with tears in his eyes after almost 20 hours of arduous walking.

Act of faith

"We came with my wife to ask for something, and the Virgin granted our wish, so here I am," he told AFP through tears, adding that what happened to him upon arrival "is impossible to convey, you have to live it and feel it."

Vaquer said a leg injury had forced him to cover much of the route using a walking stick. Whenever he doubted whether he could continue, strangers would approach to encourage him.

"On the pilgrimage there are no ideological divisions or exclusions, the road levelled us all," said Jorge García Cuerva, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, during the main Mass in front of the basilica on Sunday morning.

The 52nd Youth Pilgrimage to Luján set off on Saturday morning in the rain from the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of Liniers. The Buenos Aires Province government expected two million people to take part.

Awaiting the Pope

This year's pilgrimage had an added significance: on November 11, Pope Leo XIV will conclude his visit to Argentina with a Mass in the square in front of the basilica before travelling on to Peru.

His Argentine itinerary, which begins on November 8, also includes the city of Buenos Aires, Córdoba and a visit to the Cottolengo Don Orione centre in Claypole.

It will be the first papal visit to Luján since John Paul II prayed there in 1982, during the Malvinas War.

For Vaquer, Leo XIV's visit "in a way remedies, in inverted commas, the fact that Pope Francis did not come," referring to the Buenos Aires-born pontiff, who died in 2025.

Anabela García, a teacher who made the journey accompanying a group of young people, arrived at the basilica alongside a cart carrying a figure of the Virgin, with a guitar slung over her shoulder after leading songs along part of the route.

She said she felt "very emotional" about the pope's visit.

"It's something spectacular, and historically important too," she said adding that she would try to be there in November to hear the pontiff.

'Always there'

For García, the Virgin of Luján is "a presence that is always there."

The devotion dates back to 1630. According to tradition, a landowner in Santiago del Estero, in northern Argentina, commissioned an image of the Virgin from Brazil. During the journey, the cart carrying it stopped on the banks of the Luján River and the oxen refused to move.

They were only able to continue after unloading the crate containing the small figure. The travellers interpreted this as a sign that the Virgin had decided to stay there.

The image was placed in the care of Manuel, an enslaved African man who devoted his life to guarding it, while a place of pilgrimage grew up around it.

During Mass, hundreds of faithful continued to enter the basilica to approach the small image of the Virgin, climbing the steps with difficulty. At the entrance to the church, a young man proposed to his partner: she burst into tears and did not hesitate to say yes, AFP observed.

In Argentina, 62.9 percent of the population identifies as Catholic, according to a 2019 survey by the CONICET national scientific research institute.