Last week, a federal police officer in Argentina pepper-sprayed a 10-year-old girl sitting on the ground next to her mother amid a crackdown on protesters demanding an increase in pensions. The video recorded how the police officer ignored the warnings — “there is a girl, there is a girl” — and lowered his arm to direct the spray at the girl’s face. It went viral And this Friday he arrived at the Vatican. From there, Pope Francis deplored the actions of the security forces of Javier Milei’s government and encouraged social movements not to give up and to continue fighting in peace for “land, shelter and work,” which he defined as “sacred rights.”
“I was shown a repression, a week or a little less ago. Workers, people who were demanding their rights in the street. And the police repelled them with something that is the most expensive there is, that top-quality pepper spray. And they had no right to demand what was theirs, because they were rioters, communists, no, no. The government stood firm and instead of paying for social justice, it paid for the pepper spray,” said Francisco during his speech at an event for popular movements.
The Argentine government responded through the president’s spokesman, Manuel Adorni. “It is the Pope’s opinion, which we respect, we listen to and we even reflect on what he says. We do not have to share his vision on some issues. But we have total and absolute respect for what the Pope may say,” he said in a daily press conference.
The Pope said that “businessmen create jobs and contribute to economic prosperity,” but he rejected the idea that the distribution of this wealth should be left to the market, as Milei advocates. In his opinion, this distribution is inequitable and unequal and carries with it the risk of increasing social conflict. “If there are no policies, good policies, rational and equitable policies that strengthen social justice so that everyone has land, shelter, work, a fair salary and adequate social rights, the logic of material and human waste will spread, leaving violence and desolation in its wake,” he warned.
The Pope was accompanied by social leader Juan Grabois, former presidential candidate for Peronism, and other members of popular movements in Argentina.
Fighting organized crime
During his speech, Francis asked social movements to do everything possible to stop the advance of organized crime in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, especially at this time of state withdrawal and rising poverty.[Las formas de criminalidad organizada] They grow when there is no social-urban integration and poor neighborhoods are left marginalized without water, sewers, electricity, heating, sidewalks, parks, community centers, clubs, parishes. They grow when in rural territories there is no adequate distribution of land, a balanced territorial order, constant support for family agriculture and respect for the rural family that ends up subjected to criminal powers. We must attack these structural causes, but in the meantime we have to face this. Both things at the same time,” he asked them.
He also made a general appeal for solidarity towards others. “Please, let no one be left behind. There are so many people lying on the streets, so many people who have nothing to eat, so many people who are begging for something, who have lost their homes, who have lost their jobs! These are people who have no capacity to move forward,” he implored. “Let us look at those who are left behind,” he insisted.
Even without naming Milei, Francis’ message revives the great differences between the pontiff and the far-right leader, who before entering politics had called him a “communist” and “representative of the Evil One on Earth.” In one of his first international trips after becoming President, Milei traveled to the Vatican, embraced the Pope and held a meeting aimed at smoothing over differences.
Since then, the highest authority of the Catholic Church has sent several signals of disagreement with Milei’s policies, but until now they had been more subtle. A month ago, in the midst of controversy over the visit of a group of pro-government legislators to repressors of the last dictatorship in prison, the pontiff received Ana Fernández, granddaughter of Esther Ballestrino de Careaga, one of the founders of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo who was kidnapped, tortured and thrown into the Río de la Plata on a death flight. The sailor Alfredo Astiz, one of those convicted of that crime, was one of the repressors visited by the legislators. “Do not give up, preserve the memory,” the Pope asked Fernández at that time, a message similar to the one he addressed to social leaders on Friday.
Catholics in Argentina are excited about a possible trip by Francis to his homeland next year, but the Pope has avoided confirming it.
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