Pope Leo XIV urged an estimated 40,000 people in Uruguay on Saturday to build bridges of fraternity and faith, using his first Mass in South America to deliver an ode to the region's beloved mate tea and raise the profile of the Catholic Church in its most secular country.

The crowd erupted in the stadium chant of “Olé, olé, olé, olé, pope, pope!” when Leo’s plane landed in Paysandú, 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 Parque París Londres, a sprawling green space on the southern edge of the city.

In his homily, Leo reminded them that the Catholic faith had been part of the life of the Uruguayan people since their earliest days, and it must be passed on to future generations with creative courage. More than 30,000 people — many from Uruguay but also from neighboring Argentina and Brazil — had registered in advance to attend the service, around 375 kilometers (230 miles) from the capital, Montevideo. The Vatican said Saturday that another 10,000 had attended, despite the morning rain and blustery, gray skies.

Because of its accessible location on the Uruguay River, the city was chosen to host Leo’s first Mass at the start of his three-nation South American tour that was in doubt after he underwent lung cancer surgery on Oct. 13. “He’s the representative of Christ but he’s human. And we weren’t sure if he could make it, but he pushed through for us,” said one attendee, Soledad Sánchez, 73, who had driven to Paysandú from northern Uruguay.

Leo, who arrived in Uruguay on Friday, is urging the people in South America’s most secular country of 3.5 million to turn to the Catholic faith for strength in confronting today’s problems and challenges. In his homily, Leo asked the faithful to build bridges of fraternity, recalling the nearby bridge over the Uruguay River that connects Uruguay and Argentina and over which many pilgrims crossed to attend the Mass.

He also pointed to the ritual of drinking mate, the bitter herbal tea that Uruguayans and their neighbors carry everywhere, as a poignant symbol of unity and encounter that he suggested should be applied to spreading the faith. Mate, a cherished national symbol in Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay, is above all a sharing ritual.

The leaves are steeped in a hollowed gourd and the drink is sipped through a metal straw called a bombilla, and the gourd passes from hand to hand among friends, family and sometimes strangers, refilled for hours. Everyone drinks from the same straw, and Uruguayans drink more mate per person than people anyone else, roughly 9 kilograms (about 20 pounds) of the dried leaf a year, according to industry estimates.

“We must reflect on these symbols that we share, which give us identity and a sense of belonging, which speak to us of our origins and point us toward the future,” Leo said. The message appeared to resonate with attendees, including those who were not typically religious.