Pope Lectures Milei on Power While Cuts Gut the Disabled

More than 300 agents of the Airport Security Police ringed a fenced area at Aeroparque on Sunday while dozens of the faithful stood, sat in beach chairs or waited in their vehicles. Behind the fence, President Javier Milei waited on the tarmac to greet Pope Leo XIV, the first pope to visit Argentina in 39 years. The cordon, the cabinet, the diplomats and the private meeting at the Casa de Gobierno all belonged to those who rule. The people who've been protesting weekly outside Congress didn't get an invitation.

Who Has the Power

Leo's first address to the authorities came at the Palacio Libertad, in front of legislators, governors, mayors, judges and ambassadors. "Those who exercise authority also have a duty to act prudently, recognise the limits of the power entrusted to them and direct their decisions towards the good of the whole community," he said. He also said "the economy must be at the service of the person, and not the person at the service of the economy." That line drew the loudest applause of the night.

He spoke of families carrying "the burden of uncertainty," of people looking for work, of the elderly who spent years building society, and of those who, "even while working, struggle to meet their household needs." The mention of the elderly drew sustained applause. He asked where a nation has failed "when its young people must leave their land to fulfil their dreams."

The Buenos Aires Times called the speech a "stinging critique" of Milei's government and read the reference to "illness, dependency and disability" as a veiled reference to cuts in disability assistance, the cuts that have prompted weekly protests outside the National Congress building. Argentina's Catholic hierarchy, Mercopress noted, has been among the loudest critics of the government's austerity. The Pope named neither Milei nor the government.

What They're Calling "Order"

Milei spoke first, restrained and conciliatory. He praised Pope Francis, whom he had harshly criticised in the past, as "the most important Argentine in history." Afterward he told LN+ he didn't want to "put the Holy Father in the petty debate of local politics." Bloomberg quoted him: "It's going to be given a political interpretation, and I don't want to fall into that wretchedness of dragging the Holy Father into the gutter of local politics."

Then he turned on his critics. Debate in Argentina isn't "intellectually honest," he said, calling it "steeped in demagoguery." He claimed the opposition had voted for 40 government bills last year that sought to undermine macroeconomic stability. "I don't know whether they do it because they are intellectually dishonest, ignorant or malicious," he said.

A senior official source told Clarín that Vice President Victoria Villarruel, long excluded from official events, had shown a "petty" attitude by reading the speech politically. The message from the top: don't connect the Pope's words to the cuts. Be grateful and keep quiet.

Who Gets Crushed

The cuts landed on the sick, the disabled and pensioners, according to the Argentine press. Meanwhile Bloomberg reported that Milei has faced corruption allegations, the latest of which cost him his chief of staff earlier this year. His approval sits at about 39 percent, down from 43 percent at the start of the year, according to an AtlasIntel survey for Bloomberg News.

The Pope also said corruption "damages coexistence, fuels violence and diverts resources needed for the common good." He called for "coordinated action among states" against organised crime and arms and drug trafficking. More states policing states, in other words.

The Alternative

The visit's schedule is a tour of managed institutions: a prison, a home for disabled people, three open-air masses, trade unionists and business leaders at the Catholic University. Authorities expect some seven million participants backed by more than 25,000 volunteers. A man posing as a firefighter with a forged circulation permit was detained near the Pope's stage in Palermo. And the Grupo de los Seis business group says it will propose a national dialogue table once the Pope leaves.

The business bosses want a seat at the table where disability cuts get discussed. The people being cut get applause lines from a visiting pontiff, and then the cordon closes again.