By Joshua McElwee and Lucinda Elliott
MONTEVIDEO, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Pope Leo on Saturday urged an estimated 40,000 people, many of whom waited overnight in the rain on the Uruguay-Argentina border for his visit, to bridge their differences as he toured a region marked by sharp political divisions.
Leo, on an ambitious 12-day, three-country tour through November 17, travelled some 750 km (466 miles) back and forth from Montevideo to Paysandu, a riverside economic hub in Uruguay's northwest, where crowds
gathered in heavy rain that eased shortly before his arrival.
He was the first pope to visit the city on the Uruguay River, chosen by the Vatican as the location for Leo's first Mass in South America because it is accessible to pilgrims across the region.
The crowd in a sprawling park on the southern edge of the city erupted into cheers and blew loud horns as Leo toured in an open-top popemobile amid blustery winds.
In his sermon, Leo drew inspiration from the nearby General Artigas International Bridge, which connects Uruguay and Argentina.
"It is not difficult to imagine the benefits a bridge brings: openness, communication and exchange. That is why it is so important to be builders of bridges!" he said.
"This is the vocation to which we are all called: to build bridges, strengthen bonds, unite, communicate."
Worshipper Mariano Méndez, 36, who travelled from Buenos Aires to see Leo, said the pope created "a very uplifting energy."
"The fact that he has come to visit Latin America truly fills your heart."
POPE URGES REGIONAL COOPERATION
The 71-year-old pontiff is making one of the most demanding foreign trips by a Catholic leader in decades less than a month after undergoing lung cancer surgery.
Leo, the first US-born pope, is visiting Uruguay, one of Latin America's more stable democracies, until Sunday on the first stop of a tour that will also take him to Argentina and Peru.
The Vatican has described the trip as a "homecoming" for Leo, who served as a missionary in Peru for decades and became a Peruvian citizen.
The pope, who has forcefully decried the direction of global leadership in recent months, is expected to address a range of issues facing the continent on the tour, including environmental destruction, arms trafficking and regional political instability.
In his first address of the trip, given to Uruguay's government on Friday afternoon, he urged South American countries to tackle regional issues together and set an example for international cooperation.
POPE TO VISIT TROUBLED MONTEVIDEO NEIGHBORHOOD
Leo will lead several events on Saturday afternoon in Montevideo, including a night-time prayer vigil expected to draw some 60,000 young people.
The pope will also head to Casavalle, a neighborhood on the northern outskirts of the capital scarred by violence and drug-related crime.
Rev. Pablo Coimbra, pastor of a church Leo will visit, told Reuters he hoped the pope would lift the spirits of a community that often feels overlooked.
"It is an area forgotten by governments and institutions," Coimbra said of the neighborhood, classified as a police "red" zone, where residents often hear gunfire amid territorial disputes between drug dealers.
Leo wraps up his Uruguay visit on Sunday morning. On Sunday afternoon he heads to Argentina, where he will give a speech to President Javier Milei, a libertarian seen as a close ally of US President Donald Trump, who lambasted Leo earlier this year after the pope criticized the Iran war.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee and Lucinda Elliott in Montevideo; additional reporting by Daniela Desantis in Asunción and Mariana Nedelcu, Yara Nardi and Alejandro Obaldia in Paysandu; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Tomasz Janowski and Cynthia Osterman)
