Pope Leo XIV spoke about access to healthcare during his first stop in Uruguay, the opening leg of a 12-day Latin American tour, according to a CBS News report. The outlet's headline describes the pope as calling for "universal healthcare," a phrase that appears in the headline but not in the summary available for this story.
The CBS News report, published on November 7, 2026, also states that the remarks came weeks after the pope underwent surgery for lung cancer. The summary does not say when that surgery took place, what treatment followed, or where the pope was treated.
The source material does not include the exact words the pope used. The summary's only description of the subject is that it concerns access to healthcare, so this account does not attribute specific phrasing, figures, or policy proposals to him. No other outlet's coverage of the remarks was among the sources used, so the details here rest on the CBS News item alone.
Uruguay is the only location named in the material. The summary identifies it as the first stop of the 12-day tour but does not list later destinations or describe events after that stop. It also does not say who attended the remarks or how they were delivered.
The full text of the CBS News report was not available for this story, so any further detail about the pope's health, the surgery, or the tour would need to be checked against that article.
Sources: CBS News: Pope Leo calls for universal healthcare weeks after lung cancer surgery.