Pope Leo XIV arrives in Argentina for first papal visit since 1987

Pope Leo XIV arrives in Argentina on Sunday for the first papal visit to the country in 39 years, landing in the homeland of his predecessor Francis, who never returned as pontiff.

Leo will be met at the foot of his plane by President Javier Milei, the Buenos Aires Times reported. He arrives from Uruguay on the second leg of a South American tour and is due to celebrate an open-air Mass in Buenos Aires on Monday before travelling to the central city of Córdoba and to a basilica in Luján, near the capital, that draws millions of pilgrims each year. The last pope to visit Argentina was John Paul II in 1987.

The trip comes 12 years after Jorge Bergoglio, then archbishop of Buenos Aires, was elected as Francis, Latin America's first pope. Francis visited several countries in the region, including Brazil, but stayed away from Argentina. The most widely held explanation, according to the Buenos Aires Times, is that he feared a visit would be read as backing the centre-left Peronist movement that governed for much of his papacy, until Milei's election in 2023.

Milei, who attacked Francis over his criticism of capitalism before becoming president, told Radio Mitre last month: "I have no doubt that Pope Francis wanted to come, and I think he didn't come because he knew that if he did, it would cause a political earthquake."

Ruben Lozano, 73, from Santa Fe Province, offered a similar view. "He couldn't or didn't want to come," Lozano said during a recent visit to the capital. "In order to avoid creating divisions he said to himself: 'OK, I won't go to Argentina for the moment and everything will remain peaceful.'"

At the entrance to Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral, where Bergoglio served as archbishop for 15 years, a screen shows images of him kissing the feet of the faithful, the Buenos Aires Times reported. A poster nearby advertises Leo's Mass.

The current Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge García Cuerva, has played down comparisons between the two popes. "The successor of Peter is coming, not the successor of Francis," he said in August. He has described the visit as a chance to heal divisions between rich and poor, left and right. "The wound that exists amongst Argentines can heal, through the gentleness of tenderness, kindness, cordiality and forgiveness," he told La Nación.

Leo arrives in a country where poverty affects a third of the population after three years of austerity under Milei, whose government has cut spending and deregulated the economy. The Catholic Church has criticised the cost borne by the poor. Leo, who was born in the United States and served as a missionary and archbishop in Peru, has put the poor and marginalised at the centre of his papacy.