Pope Leo XIV lands in Argentina to face Milei's chainsaw politics

Pope Leo XIV touches down in Argentina on Sunday, and Javier Milei will be the one waiting at the airport to greet him. It is the first papal visit to the country since John Paul II in 1987 — Pope Francis, an Argentine himself, never came back while he wore the white. Leo's first full day, Monday 9 November, opens at the Cottolengo Don Orione in Claypole, a Catholic-run home for people with disabilities about 26km from Buenos Aires.

The timing stings. The home, which houses roughly 400 residents, has been starved of state support under Milei's sweeping cuts to disability funding. Coordinator Fernando Montero says the government stopped delivering medications, special foods and diapers last November, and the fight is now in court. Montero frames the two men as opposites: the pope teaches that a person's worth isn't measured by productivity, he says, while Milei is a 'hyper-capitalist' who thinks only the fiercest competitors deserve reward.

Milei has never been shy about his feelings for the papacy. In 2020 he branded Francis an 'imbecile' and 'the representative of the Evil One on Earth', accusing him of pushing communism and calling social justice theft. He claims he apologised when the two met at the Vatican in February 2024. Since taking office that December he has slashed public spending to tame inflation — a tradeoff the Mate thinktank reckons cost retirees on the minimum pension, 63% of them, about 30% of their purchasing power. At last Wednesday's retirees' march outside Congress, one man held up a cardboard sign: 'Save us Pope Leo XIV – Milei is killing us.'

The split runs deeper than welfare. In May, Leo XIV called for 'disarming' artificial intelligence, while Milei refuses to regulate AI, has pushed bills to build datacentres nationwide and wants legal status for 'no-human corporations'. Federico Sturzenegger, the minister running state cuts, says he has used AI to draft legislation. Sociologist Milagros Miceli of Berlin's Critical AI Lab calls the contradiction 'pretty evident', and left-wing Peronist deputy Juan Grabois says replacing the human element with algorithmic power has become a policy priority for the government.

Disability funding is the sharpest flashpoint between church and state. Argentina's bishops wrote to health minister Mario Lugones on 1 April denouncing the 'serious situation' facing care institutions, and the ministry has met them twice since — in April and again on 5 October — without breaking the deadlock. Social policy minister Sandra Pettovello is trying to cool things down, insisting there's 'no way' the pope will wade into local politics. Amnesty International has written to Leo XIV warning of government decisions that affect fundamental rights.