Leo XIV brings together two and a half million people in Buenos Aires

In a handful of hours, Leo

The Pope celebrated what, according to Vatican sources to 'La Nación', was the "most massive" mass of his papacy, some 2.5 million people, according to official sources, on Avenida del Libertador, in the Palermo Woods, one of the most impressive postcards of the Argentine capital.

"Do not resign yourself to the voices that repeat that the Christian family is outdated; on the contrary, today more than ever it represents a pillar among the many precariousness of our time," the Pope told some faithful who had not been visited by a Supreme Pontiff since 1987.

Before mass, in the morning, Leo XIV visited the Cottolengo Don Orione, a home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires that houses more than 400 people with severe disabilities, many of them forgotten by their families.

"The progress of a nation is also measured by the welcome it knows how to give to all people with disabilities and special needs," said the Pope in a country where the government has reduced the budget allocated to the area.

25 minute speech

But previously, he distanced himself from the Argentine president. "The economy must be at the service of the person, and not the person at the service of the economy," the American-Peruvian Pope said on Sunday night, in a 25-minute speech that dashed the Casa Rosada's hopes that the visit would not take on political characteristics.

The speech covered several questionable aspects of Milei's government and character, from his insistence on appealing to insults, rudeness and disqualification of his political opponent, to his terrible relationship with a government like Brazil's, to the need to put "emphasis on education, universities and research."

Leo

"Democracy is also strengthened in the daily way of acting in public life: in the willingness to listen, in the care of the word, in the patient search for agreements. Whoever exercises authority also has the duty to act with prudence," said the Pope, who after the act made a decision that completely threw Milei off balance.

Upon leaving the stage, León XIV approached the Argentine vice president, Victoria Villarruel, to whom Milei has not spoken for a year and a half and who was completely removed from any role and presence in the government. The Pope spoke for half a minute with Villarruel while Milei, observing the scene, chose to walk away and leave the Pope alone.

Later, Milei would say in a television interview that the Pope's speech had been of a "superlative level," and he refused to go further. "I don't want to fall into that misery of putting the Holy Father in the low debate of local politics," he argued.

The Argentine political debate, he maintained, "is characterized by low quality and a terrible intellectual level."