A group of priests from poor neighborhoods of Buenos Aires celebrated a mass on Tuesday in reparation to Pope Francis in the face of controversial statements made by the Libertarian presidential candidate, Javier Milei, against the supreme pontiff.
The mass, celebrated at the gates of the Virgen de Caacupé parish, in the capital’s Barracas neighborhood, was called by the so-called “villero priests”, who work pastorally in precarious settlements in and around Buenos Aires.
“The Pope has a preaching in favor of a world with social friendship where there are no discarded or forgotten. And for this reason the Pope often receives grievances and insults,” said Bishop Gustavo Carrara, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires and responsible for the Pastoral de las Villas in the capital.
At the conclusion of the celebration, they read a declaration, signed by some 70 priests, in which expressed their “strongest repudiation of various manifestations” of Milei that “affect the person of Pope Francis”, including “from vulgar attacks” to “lying concepts about the idea of the Pope, calling him a communist.”
Mass to reject the criticism of the presidential candidate Javier Milei, of the La Libertad Avanza party, against Pope Francis.
According to the document, Milei, the candidate with the most votes in the primaries last August, spoke “with contempt of what the figure of the successor of Peter means, affecting the sensitivity of the Catholic flock and of those who esteem them”.
“With stupefaction, we were able to verify messages on Twitter (now X) that go back to 2017 addressing the holy father saying ‘you like the shit of social justice’. And so hatred grew in his messages turned into grievances without limits until 2018, when he referred to Francisco with the worst insults, crossing all the borders of hatred“, pointed out the” villero priests.
🇦🇷 | More than 70 priests celebrate a community mass in rejection of the insults of presidential candidate Javier Milei, who described Pope Francis as an “imbecile”, “disgusting left-handed”, “communist” and
“representative of the Evil One”pic.twitter.com/b6mAuLyCCR– Alert News 24 (@AlertaNews24) September 6, 2023
The group of priests wondered “if someone with this emotional disorder” can “bear the tensions of the public office he aspires to.”
They also questioned the ideas of Milei, an ultra-liberal economist, of shrinking the State and cut public spending and pointed out that state aid is necessary in the poorest neighborhoods.
“Deifying the market leads to dehumanization by forgetting the weakest. If you only wake up lions, it is logical that they eat the most defenseless lambs,” the priests pointed out, alluding to the figure of the lion with which the presidential candidate of La Libertad Avanza.
![Pope Francisco](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2023/09/06/64f87a9f1cdd2.jpeg)
Mass in defense of Pope Francis.
What did Milei say about the pope?
The most controversial statements by the libertarian Milei about Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who until 2013, when he was elected as Supreme Pontiff, was Archbishop of Buenos Aires and Cardinal Primate of Argentina, are from November 2020, but they returned to the fore in the media after the primaries last August.
Back then, in a television interview, Milei referred to the Supreme Pontiff as “the idiot who lives in Rome” whose preaching about social justice, in his opinion, “goes against the commandments” because its base “is envy, which is a cardinal sin.”
“The Pope is the representative of the evil one on Earth occupying the throne of the house of God. The Pope promotes communism, and that goes against the sacred scriptures themselves,” he asserted.
![javier milei](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2023/08/14/64da24e0d40d2.jpeg)
Javier Milei, presidential candidate in Argentina.
Since he was launched for the presidency, the national deputy Milei has uttered multiple criticisms and insults of the pope, either on social networks, as well as in interviews and statements. He has called it “nefarious” and a “jerk.”
However, after the primaries on August 13, in which the candidate with the most votes (29.86%) was the he moderated his words and expressed that if he becomes president and the
Pope visits Argentina, would give him a welcome “according to a head of state” because he is “the spiritual leader of the vast majority of Argentines.”
The Pope is the representative of the evil one on Earth occupying the throne of the house of God
At the mass in defense of Francis, the priest José “Pepe” Di Paola, who worked closely with Jorge Bergoglio, affirmed that “the pope is for us the one who guides and who reaches with his word the hearts of people who are not of our religion and in this time has received grievances”.
“It is unworthy of a candidate to say ‘social justice bullshit’ when part of the Gospel, of the Church’s social doctrine, is love for one’s neighbor,” he said, since Milei has defined social justice as “the greatest aberration.” policy.
“This preaching goes against the faith of Pope Francis, who is the person he is attacking, but ultimately the attack goes against our faith and humanism,” Di Paola said.
*With AFP and EFE
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