Nearly 40 years after the last papal visit to Argentina, many Catholics are greeting Pope Leo XIV’s planned November trip as a sign of hope as an economic crisis leaves millions struggling with debt.
The visit, Leo’s first trip to South America since becoming pope, comes as Argentina’s Catholic Church intensifies its warnings over deteriorating living conditions among the country’s poorest and most vulnerable people, placing it increasingly at odds with President Javier Milei and his austerity program.
Since taking office in December 2023, Milei has succeeded in slowing inflation and reducing the budget deficit. But those gains have come with a steep social cost. Falling wages and pensions, combined with rising costs for public transportation, electricity, water, rent and food, have pushed millions of Argentinians into debt simply to make ends meet.
“I hope the pope comes to help poor people like me,” said Maria Ruiz Diaz, a 70-year-old retiree who, as she does every August 7, came to the San Cayetano church in Buenos Aires to pray for work. “The country is going through a difficult period. There are many brothers and sisters in distress,” said Santiago Olava, 60, who waited among dozens of worshippers outside the shrine. “The pope can open hearts and minds.”
Milei, meanwhile, has defended his economic program and rejected calls to soften his approach. “I am not going to engage in populism,” he said this week. “I will continue fighting and doing what is right and what is proper. If you want populism, you have other alternatives.”
Alongside the announcement of the papal visit, the Church displayed cardboard figures of an elderly woman, a disabled person in a wheelchair, a homeless man and a teacher beneath the words: “San Cayetano, here are your people.” The figures represented groups that Church leaders say have been among those hardest hit by government budget cuts affecting health care, education and support for vulnerable populations.
The display at the church
(Photo: Natacha Pisarenko\AP)
Buenos Aires Archbishop Monsignor Jorge García Cuerva, who led prayers Friday, delivered a pointed message about the economic strain facing ordinary Argentinians. “San Cayetano, here are your people, who need two or more jobs to make ends meet, or fall into the trap of loans that push so many families into debt and suffocation,” he said.
He added: “Together with Pope Leo XIV, we say that economic freedom cannot be absolute, and must always be measured in terms of the common good and the dignity of every person.”
The comments underscored the growing tension between Milei’s insistence on fiscal discipline and a Catholic Church increasingly focused on the human cost of his economic policies. The last pope to visit Argentina was John Paul II in April 1987. Pope Francis, who was born in Argentina, never returned to his homeland after becoming pope in 2013 and remained away until his death a little less than a year and a half ago.