Pope Leo XIV's 12-day tour of Uruguay, Argentina and Peru shows that split clearly. It also shows how much the split depends on where he lands. The three countries divide the bill in very different ways, and none of them has published a full total.
Who is paying in each country on this tour?
| Uruguay | Argentina | Peru | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main payer | The Catholic Church. The government covers some costs because it's a state visit | National government, provincial governments and the Argentine Bishops' Conference | National government |
| Reported figure | Church: about US$2.7 million (US$2.5–3 million according to Cardinal Daniel Sturla) | Governments: about US$30 million combined (national, more than US$13 million; Buenos Aires province, about US$17 million) | 63,220,991 soles (about US$18.8 million) |
| Where the money comes from | Private donations, a raffle, sponsors, institutional contributions and Mass collections | Public budgets, plus a parish collection of about 700 million pesos and about US$3 million raised by businesspeople | The Economy Ministry's contingency reserve, moved to the Foreign Ministry by decree |
None of these figures covers the same things. That makes them hard to compare. Most of them also leave out the item that is often the biggest cost: security.
Why is Uruguay's Church paying most of its own costs?
Uruguay keeps church and state further apart than any other country on the tour. It has the lowest share of Catholics in Latin America and has kept a strict separation of church and state since the early 20th century. So the Church is funding the pastoral side itself. The government still covers some costs because it's a state visit. No one has published how much that is.
The fundraising has been unusually visible. The Church's raffle offers 14 prizes, including an apartment, ten cars and three trips to Rome. But it aims to raise only about $300,000, a small slice of a bill of around US$2.7 million. Reports don't say how the rest will be split among donors, sponsors and collections. Tickets to the pope's events were free but had to be requested.
Why is Argentina's bill so complicated?
In Argentina, the costs of logistics, infrastructure and security are split between the national government, provincial governments and the Bishops' Conference. The Church handles the pastoral events and the entourage's stay.
Some of the state's spending is public, item by item. The government gave the job of producing the Palermo Mass to DF Entertainment, the Lollapalooza promoter linked to Live Nation, for 8,690 million pesos (about US$5.7 million), using an urgent, shortened contracting procedure. The state also took on security, broadcast equipment and the Aerolíneas Argentinas flights. On the private side, at least 17 companies and institutions are listed as donors.
Sources don't agree on the headline number. Rosario Finanzas described about US$30 million as the Vatican's estimated cost, partly covered by businesspeople. Reports based on Chequeado instead put about US$30 million on the national and Buenos Aires provincial governments. The Bishops' Conference spokesman told MDZ that he knew of no one who had discussed a US$30 million budget. The total cost is still unknown. It's possible the two US$30 million figures have been mixed up.
The biggest gap is security. Argentina's national security ministry didn't answer Chequeado's question about its budget for the visit.
On the other side of the ledger, Buenos Aires's tourism body expects more than 1.2 million visitors and over US$88 million in economic activity. Whether that actually offsets the public spending won't be known until after the visit, if anyone measures it.
How is Peru paying for its part?
Peru has the simplest arrangement, and it's all public money. A supreme decree published on 5 September authorized the Economy Ministry to transfer the money to the Foreign Ministry to fund the 11–16 November visit. It comes from the contingency reserve and is booked as current spending on goods and services. The published reports don't say whether the US$18.8 million covers all policing and security or only the Foreign Ministry's organizing costs.
What does the Vatican actually pay?
The Vatican's main cost is the plane, and even that is partly offset. For papal flights, the Vatican rents an ITA Airways aircraft with crew. News outlets pay for their journalists' economy seats at prices closer to business-class fares. The Vatican has no airline, so ITA supplies the aircraft, crew and flight planning, under a contract ITA's CEO says the airline had to negotiate.
Explainers often stop at the outbound flight. By tradition, the pope leaves Rome on the Italian flag carrier and flies home on a plane chartered from the host country's airline. On this tour, the host country is also covering the hops in between. Aerolíneas Argentinas scheduled five special flights connecting Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Córdoba and Lima from 8 to 11 November, at the Argentine state's expense, according to Letra P. In Uruguay, the Vatican covers the plane and the pope's personal expenses.
None of these sources gives a figure for what the Vatican is spending on this trip, including the flight home from Lima. The best historical clue is old. In 1987, Fortune reported that about $800,000 of the Holy See's spending went on news coverage of the pope's yearly trips. Beyond that, the magazine said the trips cost the Holy See "a pittance."
Why does security so often go missing from the total?
Governments treat protecting the pope like protecting any visiting head of state, and that cost tends to sit inside police budgets rather than in a "papal visit" line. For Pope Francis's 2016 trip to Mexico, the government planned to deploy more than 10,000 police, soldiers and presidential guard agents and paid for it itself. An expert called that normal head-of-state protocol. Britain's widely quoted £10 million for Benedict XVI's 2010 visit didn't count policing.
Concordat Watch, a site that campaigns on church–state issues, goes further. It argues that governments keep these costs hidden from taxpayers and calls security by far the largest item. That is the site's argument, not an audited finding. Still, the gaps in this tour's figures fit the pattern it describes.
How does this compare with earlier papal visits?
| Visit | Reported cost | Who paid |
|---|---|---|
| Philadelphia, 2015 (Francis) | US$17 million city cost | Taxpayers covered US$8 million after the organizing World Meeting of Families repaid only part |
| United Kingdom, 2010 (Benedict XVI) | £10 million, not counting policing | British taxpayers |
| Ireland, 2018 (Francis) | About €32 million for 32 hours | Split between church and state |
| Lisbon World Youth Day, 2023 (Francis) | At least €155 million | The Church, the national government, and the Lisbon and Loures municipalities |
| Mexico, 2016 (Francis) | No total given | The Mexican government paid for security |
The type of visit matters as much as the destination. John Paul II's 1982 trip to Britain was a pastoral visit, so the Catholic Church in the UK paid for it. Benedict's 2010 trip was a state visit, so the government paid. Ireland didn't make Francis's 2018 trip a formal state visit, but treated it as one for security. Uruguay's mix of a state visit with a church-funded program follows the same logic.
The numbers don't line up neatly. Some include policing and some don't. Lisbon's total covers a whole youth festival, not just a papal visit. So it's more useful to read each figure as "who admitted to paying what" than to rank the countries by cost.
What isn't known yet?
There's no total for the whole tour. Argentina hasn't disclosed its security budget, Uruguay's government hasn't published its share, and Peru's decree doesn't make clear whether it covers all security. The Vatican's own costs for this trip, from the charter out of Rome to the flight home from Lima, haven't been made public.