Who voted in the American elections, citizen Robert Prevost or the Pope? The question is not as crazy as it seems. Citizen Robert, registered on the electoral roll of Will County, Illinois, voted by mail in last Tuesday's midterm elections. For him it is not new, but it is new in his new capacity as Pope: never before has a Pope participated in an election in his country from the Vatican, and the gesture has caused questions among Catholics.
The Holy See, it would seem, has not said who Leo XIV voted for, although many assume that his preferences are closer to those who defend the reception of immigrants and peace than to the policies of Donald Trump. In any case, the twelve bishops who, just a few days before the elections, went to the Oval Office to pray for Trump, some laying hands on him, were not acting on behalf of the Pope, or even the Episcopal Conference. The White House released the images and several of the participants ended up regretting their political use. The Episcopal Conference distanced itself from the meeting, while the Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jeffrey Grob, came to apologize.
Some Catholic commentators have even gone so far as to interpret the Democratic victory as a response to Trump's attacks on the pontiff. “Americans sided with the Pope,” maintains Christopher Hale, author of the Catholic publication Letters from Leo.
If behind that vote there is also a commitment to social justice, there will be an opportunity to see it starting this Friday, when Leo XIV undertakes his first trip to South America since his election. The tour, which will begin in Uruguay, continue in Argentina and conclude in Peru, has a strong personal burden for a pontiff who spent a good part of his life on the continent, but also an obvious political meaning.
The lung operation that the pontiff underwent last October to remove a malignant tumor made many question the wisdom of maintaining such a demanding tour. Many, but not Leo XIV himself. “I really wanted to make this trip,” explain Vatican sources, who assure that no special medical device has been planned to accompany it.
Leo XIV returns to a region crossed by profound inequalities, where poverty, emigration and social tensions occupy a central place in the public debate. The distinction between Prevost and Leo XIV reappeared last Tuesday during the presentation of the trip, which also marked the debut before journalists of the new prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, Montserrat Alvarado, Mexican by birth and American by adoption. In Peru, they explained from the Holy See, there will be on the one hand the man who wants to reconnect with the places and people that marked his life, and on the other the Pope who arrives as pastor of the universal Church.
The Argentine stopover promises to be especially delicate. Javier Milei awaits him there, a president who has turned the battle against social justice into one of his hallmarks. Milei considers her an aberration, a theft and an injustice, and does not usually spare vulgar expressions when she attacks her. For the Catholic Church, on the other hand, social justice is part of a doctrinal tradition that Leo XIV has claimed since the beginning of his pontificate, even with the choice of his name, a reference to Leo
In the Vatican, in case it was necessary to clarify, they insist that the Pope does not travel to Buenos Aires to challenge Milei. However, just take a look at the program to see that social issues will occupy a good part of your stay. Leo They are common appointments on papal trips, but they take on a special meaning in the Argentina of the self-proclaimed anarcho-capitalist president. “This will be the central issue and Milei will not be able to avoid it,” says Guzmán Carriquiry, secretary emeritus of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, during a meeting with journalists organized in Rome by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. "This time he will not be able to say that they are things of social envious people. But those who expect this trip to be a counterpoint to the president are wrong. Leo XIV will ask to raise our gaze above the petty polarization of these times."
And it will be inevitable that during those days the memory of Jorge Mario Bergoglio will constantly appear, the Pope who never wanted to return to Buenos Aires, the city of which he had been archbishop. Because? "It's a great enigma. I asked him dozens of times, we were friends, but I never got a serious answer," Carriquiry acknowledges. Leo XIV will be the first pontiff to set foot in Argentina since John Paul II, almost four decades ago. The crowds awaiting him will also be a demonstration of the extent to which Catholicism continues to have a popular force in the country, beyond political divisions and the memory of Francis.
