Pope Leo draws 650,000 in another strong show of support

Pope Leo drew 650,000 people to an outdoor Mass in Argentina's second city of Cordoba on Tuesday, the second strong turnout on his 12-day South America tour, as pilgrims travelled from across the country for the event.



Throngs pressed against barriers at an Argentine military airfield as Leo arrived for the Mass in an open-air popemobile.



Many waved white-and-yellow Vatican flags and chanted, "We love you, Pope Leo."



Leo, on an ambitious three-country tour through November 17, is travelling 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 layman who were killed by the Argentine military junta in 1976.



Leo is the first pope to visit Catholic-majority Argentina since 1987.