Vatican: first face-to-face meeting between the Argentine president and his compatriot, Pope Francis
After his visit to Israel, Javier Milei arrived in Vatican City. The Argentine President attended this Sunday, February 11, the canonization of Mama Antula, who became the first Argentine saint. He is due to speak with Pope Francis tomorrow. This meeting between the Pope and the Argentine president is all the more awaited as the relationship between the two compatriots got off to a bad start.
Argentine President Javier Milei meets Pope Francis at the Vatican, February 11, 2024. © Vatican media / Reuters
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The 53-year-old Argentine president is making his first official visit to Rome two months after taking office. He stood up as the
pope
– in a wheelchair due to his difficulty moving – entered the basilica, at the start of the ceremony. In front of hundreds of faithful, Javier Milei, smiling, bowed to receive the embrace of the sovereign pontiff in Saint Peter's Basilica, at the end of the canonization mass of the 18th century nun and missionary María Antonia de San José , known as “Mama Antula”. The two leaders also exchanged a few words before the mass, the Vatican said.
This first face to face marks a step in an uncertain relationship between the two men. In recent months,
Javier Milei
has not been short of insults towards the Pope. The relationship between the Argentine president and the pontiff began with Javier Milei's repeated denigrations and even insults towards Pope Francis. It must be said that apart from their Argentinian nationality and perhaps their common opposition to abortion, everything opposes the two men. Javier Milei is the incarnation of “
wild liberalism
”, tirelessly denounced by the sovereign pontiff.
Two diametrically opposed visions
The Argentine president
, who defines himself as an "anarcho-capitalist", dreams of a society without a state, which would be entirely organized by the invisible hand of the market, and considers that the social justice so dear to the former archbishop of Buenos Aires is an “
aberration
”, reports our correspondent in Buenos Aires,
Théo Conscience
. On ecology, a strong theme of the pontificate, Javier Milei assures that climate change is not “
a responsibility of man
”, while the pope denounces the impact of man on the “
Common Home
”.
Conversely, Pope Francis' entire message about poverty, the importance of community ties, and the role of the state comes into direct conflict with
the Argentine president's libertarian individualism
. This is also what we can read between the lines in the Pope's statements about Argentina's Mama Antula. This week, Francis said that the priority she had always given to the most disadvantaged made her an example, “
in a society that forgets that radical individualism is the most difficult virus to defeat
.”
This ideological antagonism pushed Javier Milei to make very harsh, even sometimes filthy, remarks about his compatriot. Until his election, Javier Milei had made his compatriot one of the main targets of his chronic excesses. He went so far as to call him a “
nefarious character
”, a “
representative of the Evil One on Earth
” and even a “
shit leftist
”. The economist's tone changed after Francis called to congratulate him on
his election in November
and sent him a blessed rosary. From then on, the president apologized to the pope and formally invited him to come to his country, which would be a first since the former archbishop of Buenos Aires was elected pope in 2013. The pontiff accepted these excuses, saying they make a distinction between what a politician can say when he is campaigning and what he does once elected.
Towards a normalization of the relationship between the two men?
In any case, this is the meaning that the Argentine press gives to this private audience and to this invitation to the canonization of Mama Antula. This Saturday, an Argentine editorialist even had fun saying that a reconciliation between Javier Milei and the Pope would be the third miracle of the new saint.
This Monday, February 12, the meeting will therefore be closely scrutinized in Argentina, with particular attention to the time that the two men will spend together, which is a sort of unofficial thermometer of the mood of the meeting. During his first meeting with Alberto Fernandez, Javier Milei's predecessor, the Pope came out smiling after 44 minutes. This contrasted with the closed face he had displayed after an interview of only 22 minutes with former President Mauricio Macri, a few years earlier.
This meeting comes at a time when the country is experiencing
a tense political context
, marked this week by the setback in Parliament of the massive deregulation of the economy desired by Javier Milei.
(
And with
AFP)
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