Pope Francis was a source of controversy and spiritual advice in his Argentinian homeland

The tensions reached a head under the current Libertarian President Milei, who insulted Francis as a “dirty left” and “the representative of evil on earth” before he took office in December 2023.

They seemed to be reconciled at a meeting in Rome last year. But when Argentine police were unleashed to Protestant retirees for better pensions to Buenos Aires, Francis broke his usual silence for Milei Chide on the impact of his government’s austerity program: “Instead of paying social justice, they paid the pepper gas,” he said.

Milei formulated its condolences with a nod to these tensions.

“Despite the differences that seem minor today, having been able to know him with his kindness and his wisdom was a real honor for me,” he wrote on social networks.

Never returned home like Pope

Francis has traveled the world – and even towards neighboring Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay – but never set foot in his homeland after his election in March 2013, to the chagrin of his compatriots.

“This is a political decision, there is no doubt,” said Alejandra Renaldo, 64, of Francis’ childhood church in the Délés district of the middle class Flores, less than half a minute from his first house.

“Can you believe that he never went to his own earth?” I prefer John Paul II by far, he went to Poland, his country, just after becoming a Pope. He had no political idea. ”

At the cathedral where Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, became an archbishop in 1998, the faithful tilted their heads into silent prayer. A little cried, ash. They left flowers and handwritten notes on the steps and stickers set for the favorite local football team of Francis, San Lorenzo, on the stone columns.

In Flores, where Bergoglio was born from an Italian immigrant father and a mother of Italian origin, the Argentines stopped to gather around the confessional in the church where, at 16, Bergoglio had said that he had heard the call to the priesthood.

“He was a father for us in Flores,” said Gabriela Lucero, 66, when she got up for morning mass in the Basilica of San Jose de Flores. “His main philosophy was that these doors of the Church remain open to everyone, immigrants, poor, difficulties, everyone.”

Sorrow in poor Argentinian districts

With Milei declaring a week of mourning and lowering the flags to half of the staff, there was a strong feeling of sorrow across the country. But nowhere, it was only apparent in the Harscrabble districts where Francis concentrated his awareness as a Chevêque.

His heritage can still be seen in the context of priests who have continued to work, live and help the poor in these districts neglected for a long time by successive governments, where garbage pour over the sidewalks and the stench of wastewater on the streets in rut.

The residents of Villa 21-24, a district in the south of Buenos Aires, became emotional when they remembered Francis to visit regularly to share Yerba Mate, the drink based on traditional Argentina plants, with pious mothers and cocaine toxicomans in recovery.

They said that he had led religious processions barefoot in the streets and helped to grow their dilapidated church in a place of prayer and spiritual contemplation, a dynamic community center with a garden and a school.

“ The most humble person of Buenos Aires ”

“He was the most humble person of all in Buenos Aires. We will never see a pope again like him,” said Sara Benitez Fernandez, 57, a devotee of the district congregation. She stifled her tears as she remembered how he always took the metro and walked, never arriving in a car.

“I have no words, it hurts so much, which is so bad,” she said.

The church chief, the Reverend Lorenzo de Vedia, a charismatic and disordered priest known to Padre Toto, said that the death of his nearby friend and Mentor had left him on Monday a swell of sorrow and whirlwind other feelings.

“It is a day of pain, but we do not lose mind,” he said, while the children who flowed continued outside the presbytery. “We continue and we make his inheritance. We go ahead with the mission he has entrusted to us. ”

The videojournalist of the Associated Press Victor Caivano in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.

Originally published: April 21, 2025 at 4:01 p.m.