Pope Francis and the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, greeted and hugged each other this Sunday (11), after the canonization of the first Argentine saint.
The meeting represents a kind of end to the climate of the election season, in which the now Argentine president harshly criticized the pontiff, calling him, for example, “the representative of the evil one on Earth”.
After the Eucharist in Saint Peter's Basilica, in the Vatican, the pontiff was taken in a wheelchair, because of his knee problems, to the place where the politician had attended the mass, to his right, in the front row.
At that moment, Milei shook the religious leader's hand and gave him a hug. The two talked for a few moments, laughing.
Hug between Milei and the Pope
This meeting between the Latin American pontiff and the Argentine president generated great expectations due to Milei's attacks during the election campaign.
However, the attacks had already decreased since he arrived at Casa Rosada in December last year. On Saturday (10), in an interview with “Mitre” radio, Milei expressed his willingness to maintain “a very fruitful dialogue” with the pope, who he now sees as “the most important Argentine in history.”
The pontiff, in turn, always minimized the importance of the politician's words and even called him to congratulate him on his electoral victory.
This Monday (12), starting at 9 am (5 am in Brasília), Pope Francis will receive Milei at the Apostolic Palace in a closed-door audience.
As the president said, among other issues, the pope's possible trip to his home country, where he has not returned since the beginning of his papacy, in 2013, will be on the table.
First Argentine saint
In St. Peter's Basilica, Pope Francis presided this Sunday at the canonization of María Antonia de San José de Paz y Figueroa, known as Mama Antula.
In his homily he recalled the passage in which Jesus healed a leper, a representation of modern marginalized people.
“How many suffering people we find on the sidewalks of our cities, and how many fears, prejudices and inconsistencies, even among those who believe and profess to be Christians, contribute to hurting them even more! Also in our time, there is so much marginalization, there are barriers to be overthrown, 'leprosy' to be cured,” he said.
In this sense, he made an appeal to “touch” people who suffer and not “reduce the world to the precincts of our 'well-being'”.
“In these cases, let us be careful, because the diagnosis is clear: it is 'leprosy of the soul'; a disease that makes us insensitive to love, compassion, that destroys us through the “gangrene” of selfishness, prejudice, indifference and of intolerance”, he warned.
A few minutes earlier, the pontiff had pronounced the formula in Latin with which he elevated to the altars Mama Antula, recognized for her arduous social and religious work in the lands of Argentina in the 18th century, before independence.
He also thanked her for her work to keep alive the legacy of the Society of Jesus, to which the Pope himself belongs, after his expulsion from the Spanish Crown by order of King Charles III.
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