Javier Milei cannot be accused of trying everything. The libertarian president of Argentina gave the green light for unscheduled holidays so that millions of people on the streets in Buenos Aires or Cordoba could cheer his critic, the Pope. Milei's sister Karina prepared Leo XIV's visit down to the smallest detail and served the Pope the homeland of his predecessor Francis, who died the previous year, on a silver platter. Given the huge crowds, this was a small organizational masterpiece.
In the last three years, the libertarian president has also endured increasingly harsh criticism from the capital's archbishop at the traditional thanksgiving services on Independence Day in the Buenos Aires Cathedral. And in the week before the Pope's visit, Milei spoke about jointly defending Christian-Jewish values at a time of growing anti-Semitism and persecution of Christians.
It didn't help at all.
Pope Leo XIV's visit to Argentina, which ended on Wednesday, resulted in a papal reckoning with Milei's economically liberal structural reforms to restructure the country. She meets Milei in the most vulnerable phase of his presidency so far. Within a few weeks, his most important international allies Donald Trump in the USA, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil lost landmark elections and thus massive influence. And now the Pope is opposing him at a time when the Argentine economy is weakening.
For Milei this means: he is on his own for the next twelve months, at the end of which he will be re-elected. That doesn't have to be bad news for the sometimes eccentric individualist. On the one hand, four years ago he and his sister almost single-handedly managed to drive the exhausted political elites from power. And it is also questionable whether the proximity to the trio mentioned above would have really been advantageous in the election campaign.
“Leo XIV – the true Peronist Pope”
What remains of the papal visit is the sentence whose force and impact Leo XIV may well have been aware of: “The economy has to serve the people and not the people of the economy.” The left-wing populist opposition can hardly believe their luck. The “Letra P” portal cheered: “Leo XIV – the true Peronist Pope.” He gave a speech to entrepreneurs and trade unionists “that was based on the programmatic guidelines” of the Peronist party. Overnight, hard-working activists stuck up posters showing a photo of Pope Francis shaking hands with his successor Pope Leo XIV - then still in priestly robes. Everyone should know: The Argentine Church and the Pope stand united – against the government.
The Pope's criticism of Milei's scaled-back social policy is not wrong, but the church leader has taken it out of context. It is his duty that the Pope criticizes poverty and unemployment. However, the fact that he does not mention that, according to the aid agency Unicef, child poverty has measurably reduced, the national budget has been balanced and the currency, which is threatened by hyperinflation, has been stabilized, has clearly affected the president.
This is most evident in the Pope's call for public construction contracts to create jobs. That's not wrong either, but the orders were stopped because in the past, on the one hand, they were divided among themselves by corrupt mafia networks at inflated prices and, on the other hand, the state was almost bankrupt when it took office. The Milei camp remained demonstratively silent; those around the president said that he was sticking to his convictions.
Argentina's entrepreneurs feel that the reform course could be ended again next year in the presidential elections. After the Pope's speech, the so-called "G6" group, a coalition of industrial and trade associations, suggested a "broad-based forum with the state authorities, the provinces, workers and civil society." The goal must be to agree on a few principles that should last beyond each individual government, the newspaper “Clarin” reported. A kind of contingency plan in case the money printing policy returns to power.
La Nacion reported that the Argentine bonds already reflect current doubts about political continuity. Milei knows that he now has to concentrate on his core task again if he wants to remain in office. The Argentine economy must produce better growth rates next year. If he succeeds, he has a good chance. If growth remains low, people will turn away from it because of the many victims.
At least the fronts with the church seem to have been resolved. Two views collide. Milei wants to eliminate the structural causes of poverty through reforms and economic growth. The Pope wants to alleviate poverty in the here and now through transfer payments. Whether Milei will at least strive for understanding with the church in the future after this historic papal trip remains an exciting question. In the past, he has flirted with converting to Judaism from time to time, and he has also shown himself to be more open towards the conservative evangelical churches, which in Latin America have become a growing reservoir for those disappointed in the Catholic Church.
The American Pope has revealed his economic policy preferences, which is also an exciting development for the US presidential election campaign and the Democrats' criticism of capitalism. And he has confirmed the gradual change of power within the Catholic Church. In the middle of the last century, after their emergence, left-wing liberation theologians were defamed, excluded and kept away from important positions by a thoroughly conservative church. Today, these same critics of capitalism dominate the agenda, and their conservative opponents are hardly heard any more.
