By Joshua McElwee
CORDOBA, Argentina, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Pope Leo drew some 650,000 people to an outdoor Mass in Argentina's second city of Cordoba on Tuesday, in the second strong turnout of crowds on his 12-day South America tour, as pilgrims travelled from across the country for the event.
Throngs of people pressed against barriers on an Argentine military airfield as Leo arrived for the Mass in an open-air popemobile, many waving white-and-yellow Vatican flags and chanting "We love you, Pope Leo."
Leo, on an ambitious three-country tour through November 17, is travelling some 1,300 km (807 miles) back and forth from Buenos Aires on Tuesday for two events in Cordoba, a city nestled in the foothills of the Sierras Chicas mountain range with strong Catholic history and long ties to the Jesuit order.
In his sermon for the Mass, the pope praised Argentina's long history of Catholic devotion, citing the example of its first woman saint, the 18th century nun known as Mama Antula, and of a bishop, two priests and a lay man who were killed by the Argentinian military junta in 1976.
"Here in Cordoba ... we wish to give thanks to God for the diverse fruits of holiness borne by the men and women whom the Lord sent to this land of Argentina," he said.
Leo is the first pope to visit majority-Catholic Argentina since 1987.
POPE BUTTRESSES STRONGHOLD CATHOLIC REGION
Some 2.5 million took part in a Mass with the pope in Buenos Aires on Monday, in the largest event of his 18-month papacy.
The pope, who is also visiting Uruguay and Peru on the tour, is seeking to reinforce a region that has long been a Catholic stronghold but where the Church has been losing ground recently to fast-growing evangelical denominations.
Leo has emerged as a forceful voice on the world stage, lamenting what he sees as a failure of global leadership. In Argentina, he has directly challenged President Javier Milei, a libertarian who is a close ally of Donald Trump.
On Sunday, he urged Milei, who has pushed an austerity agenda that the Church has strongly criticized for cutting social services, to not target Argentina's poorest.
Cordoba Cardinal Angel Sixto Rossi, a critic of the austerity policies, said he welcomed Leo's visit as a chance for the pope to see how Argentina is suffering under Milei's measures.
"He knows how beautiful our people are and the ugly part, the leadership of the government," he said in a recent interview to a local outlet. "He doesn't arrive blindfolded."
Argentine foreign minister Pablo Quirno said Cordoba was chosen as a stop on the pope's tour because of its location in the center of Argentina, allowing pilgrims to travel easily from neighboring provinces.
Leo, the first US-born pope, spent decades as a missionary in Peru. The Vatican has described the trip, one of the most demanding foreign tours by a pope in decades, as a "homecoming" for him.
(Reporting by Joshua McElwee, additional reporting by Leila Miller and Lucila Sigal; editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
