“See you soon,“ then cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was reported as declaring as he left Buenos Aires in 2013 to take up his papal duties at the Vatican.
But he never returned to the beloved city where he was schooled and baptized, where he first felt the call to fight for the underprivileged, and where he fell in love with the San Lorenzo football club -- of which he was the most famous fan.
And visiting under any particular president would have been interpreted as a political blessing.
- ‘Leader of the opposition’ -
This brought him in conflict with some politicians, prompting the former president Nestor Kirchner to once call Bergoglio “the spiritual leader of the opposition.”
Two Jesuit priests were detained and tortured during this time, but it was later proved that, contrary to allegations that he had been complicit, Bergoglio had intervened on their behalf.
Francis clashed with successive presidents on the left and right over corruption, populism and social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.
The pope, his biographer Rubin said, was “a man with a political mind” and “a vocation for dialogue.”
Milei subsequently apologized and was received at the Vatican two months after his election. Photos showed the fellow Argentines smiling and embracing.
Until a constitutional reform of 1994, only Catholics had the right to become president.
“Yes, I am doing politics. Because everybody has to do politics. Christian people have to do politics. When we read what Jesus said, we see that he was doing politics,“ he said in 2023.
Many Argentines nevertheless viewed him as a leftist -- even on the side of “Peronism,“ the populist socialist movement named after Juan Domingo Peron that dominated Argentine politics for decades.
Political or not, the pope has consistently advocated for governments to do more to protect and uplift the most vulnerable.
“The state, today more important than ever, is called upon to exercise this central role of redistribution and social justice,“ he said in a video issued shortly after he received Milei at the Vatican in 2024.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Pope Francis’s delicate ties with politics in Argentina )
Also on site :