Photos offer a glimpse inside Argentina disability care home Pope Leo XIV will visit in November

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Residents participate in a pastry workshop at the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione, a home for people with disabilities that will be visited by Pope Leo XIV in November, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

An aerial view of the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione, a home for people with disabilities that will be visited by Pope Leo XIV in November, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd) — Residents participate in a pastry workshop at the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione, a home for people with disabilities that will be visited by Pope Leo XIV in November, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

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5:59 PM on Friday, September 25

By RODRIGO ABD

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — At a Catholic home south of Argentina’s capital, residents with disabilities are eagerly preparing to welcome Pope Leo XIV as their caregivers struggle to secure medicine, diapers and other essentials.

Leo will visit the home in Claypole, a working-class suburb of Buenos Aires, on Nov. 9, a day after meeting President Javier Milei. The back-to-back stops will take him from the presidential palace to a home whose staff say the libertarian leader’s spending cuts threaten the round-the-clock assistance residents need to walk, talk, eat and bathe.

Home to about 400 people with disabilities, the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione resembles a small town, with roads connecting dozens of residential buildings, classrooms and therapy rooms around a central square and church. Beyond basic care, it helps residents develop skills and pursue their own goals through cooking workshops, gardening and dance classes. Families often turn to the institution when they cannot afford care or are unable or unwilling to provide it themselves, caregivers say. Most residents receive no family visits.

For years, the home also served as a training ground for future priests. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, encouraged seminarians to spend a month at the Cottolengo before ordination, putting their faith into practice through service to people on society’s margins. Francis never returned to Argentina during his 12-year papacy, disappointing many of his compatriots.

Now Leo’s visit promises to draw international attention to the home at a critical moment, said Fernando Montero, who oversees its disability services. Since government deliveries of medicines, diapers, dressings and food stopped in November 2025, the home has relied on its own funds and donations to fill the gap.

"Pope Leo’s visit gives us great hope that this problem — and people with disabilities themselves — will gain visibility,” Montero said.

___ Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.