Pope Francis and the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, greeted and hugged each other this Sunday after the canonization of the first Argentine saint, thus ending the time in which the now president disqualified the pontiff, calling him “the representative of evil in the Land”. Once the Eucharist was over in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, the pontiff was taken in a wheelchair due to his knee problems to the place where the politician had followed the mass, to his right, in the front row before a kneeler. .
At that moment, Milei shook his hand and gave him a hug, both of them talking between laughs for a few moments. Francis presided in St. Peter's Basilica over the canonization of the consecrated laywoman María Antonia de San José de Paz y Figueroa, known as Mama Antulaand in his homily he recalled the passage in which Jesus healed a leper, a representation of the modern marginalized.
“Let's not think that they are just things of the past. 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 wounding them even more! Also in our time there is so much marginalization, there are barriers to break down, leprosy to heal,” he said.
The 'leprosy' of the soul
In this sense, he called to “touch” those people who suffer and not “reduce the world in,” he said, “the precincts of our be okay”. “In these cases we must be careful, because the diagnosis is clear: it is leprosy of the soul; an illness that makes us insensitive to love, to compassion, that destroys us through gangrene of selfishness, prejudice, indifference and intolerance,” he warned.
A few minutes before, the pontiff had pronounced the formula in Latin with which he raised Mama Antula to the altars, who is recognized for her arduous social and religious work in the Argentine lands of the 18th century, before its Spanish independence. But he also thanked him for his work in keeping 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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This meeting between the first Argentine and Latin American pontiff and the far-right politician had generated great expectation due to the latter's attacks during the electoral campaign, when he called him the “representative of evil on Earth.” However, his attacks have stopped after his arrival at the Casa Rosada last December and this Saturday expressed on Radio Miter his willingness to have “a very fruitful dialogue” with the Pope, whom he now sees as “the most important Argentine in history.”
Bergoglio, for his part, has always downplayed his words and in fact telephoned him to congratulate him on his victory. This Sunday, in addition to the final hug, the two had planned a brief and formal meeting before the mass in the sacristy of St. Peter's Basilica, about which no information has been released. But the most anticipated moment will take place this Monday, starting at nine in the morning, when Francisco receives him at the Apostolic Palace in an audience behind closed doors.
On the table, as the president has advanced, will be among other issues the possible trip of the Pope to his native country, where he has not returned since his election in the 2013 conclave. Milei has arrived in Rome from Israel accompanied by the general secretary of the Presidency, his sister Karina Milei, and his ministers of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Human Capital, as well as his cult secretary, among others.
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