"As a Catholic, I’m tired of this guy," Felipe Núñez wrote on X on Friday. "Less politics and more preaching the word of God, Cuerva." Núñez advises Economy Minister Luis Caputo and sits on the board of BICE, a state-owned bank that finances investment and foreign trade. He aimed the post at Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva. It landed five weeks before Pope Leo XIV’s planned visit, forcing the government to handle a dispute it hadn’t chosen.
The Archbishop’s Warning
García Cuerva has led the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, the country’s most senior Catholic see, since 2023. After Mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral on Friday 2 October, he told reporters the pope would find "a wounded Argentina, a divided Argentina, with that famous rift." He described a country "where disqualification and intolerance are the order of the day." He said it hurt to see "a very large percentage" of Argentines "having a hard time."
He didn’t name President Milei, Infobae noted. He praised working families "who don’t give up." Earlier this year, he warned against "division and polarisation" at the 25 May Tedeum. On 7 August, the feast of San Cayetano, he said absolute economic freedom cannot exist.
The Government’s Response
Ministers stayed publicly silent. El Día reported that senior officials left the counterattack to second-tier figures such as Núñez as they tried to separate García Cuerva from the wider Church hierarchy. They value their ties with Marcelo Colombo, head of the Argentine Episcopal Conference. "They are not the same political ties," an official at the presidential palace told Infobae.
Milei and his sister Karina, the presidency’s secretary-general, ordered that relations with the Church remain free of politics, according to Infobae. Some officials privately link García Cuerva to Kirchnerism, the left-wing Peronist movement of former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Núñez’s post drew criticism beyond the Church, too. Ricardo Alfonsín, a former congressman and son of the late president Raúl Alfonsín, called it disrespectful. He argued that Christian faith requires attention to social suffering, El Destape reported.
What the Numbers Say
The poverty data cuts both ways. INDEC, the national statistics institute, put poverty at 32.3 percent in the first half of 2026, about 15.5 million people. That’s up from 28.2 percent in the second half of 2025, roughly 2 million more people. Indigence rose to 7.5 percent from 6.3 percent.
The government points to a much higher starting line. Poverty stood at 52.9 percent in the first half of 2024, after Milei’s devaluation and spending cuts. Bishops say those gains haven’t reached ordinary households. In August, Ángel Rossi, the archbishop of Córdoba, said "the macroeconomy does not reach the plate."
A Disability Law and a Tight Calendar
One stop on the pope’s itinerary worries officials. He is due at Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione, a home for disabled people in Claypole, on 9 November. Congress is debating a new disability law, but disputes over cost and wording remain unresolved. "The Cottolengo part is going to go badly," one government source told Perfil. Another official said, "We do not think there will be problems." Perfil reported that the government wants the law settled before November.
García Cuerva was expected to speak again at the 52nd youth pilgrimage to Luján, a 60-kilometre walk to Argentina’s main Marian shrine, on 3 and 4 October. The pilgrimage also serves as a logistics rehearsal for the pope’s mass there. Leo XIV is due to land in Buenos Aires on Sunday 8 November and meet Milei at the Casa Rosada. El Día reported that the dispute hasn’t changed the visit programme and that coordination between government, Church and local authorities continues.
Why This Matters: The episode shows a government trying to protect an austerity program from a moral argument it can’t easily dismiss. Poverty has fallen sharply from its 2024 peak but risen again over the last two reporting periods, giving the Church’s critique political force. The disability law adds a fiscal test. Its cost remains disputed, and the government wants it resolved before the pope arrives. Officials who prevent the dispute from widening into a clash with the whole Church, while holding to spending discipline, will likely shape how the visit is judged. Senior ministers’ restraint contrasts with an adviser’s blunt post, signaling that the government sees institutional ties as worth preserving even amid disagreement over economic policy.