A Missionary Pope Faces a Chain Saw-Wielding Populist in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES—Pope Leo XIV is a soft-spoken missionary who rode horseback to minister to the poor in remote corners. President Javier Milei is a populist who brandished a chain saw on the campaign trail to symbolize his promise to slash government spending, champions unfettered capitalism and calls social welfare “an aberration” akin to robbery.

Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass in Uruguay on Sunday before traveling to Argentina.The two men will come face-to-face Sunday as the pontiff, born in Chicago but with 20 years of experience ministering in Peru, arrives for a four-day visit in a country where the Catholic Church and the libertarian president are increasingly at odds over how to deal with society’s most vulnerable.

Neither man wants a public quarrel. Milei has said the pope’s visit is a blessing that will bring Argentines “immense joy and spiritual enrichment.” But in a country where Catholic priests and prelates have emerged as some of the president’s toughest critics, Leo’s message of compassion for the poor and vulnerable is expected to have political ramifications for an increasingly unpopular president who is also Trump’s closest ally in South America.

The two men also differ sharply on artificial intelligence. Leo has warned of its dangers, while Milei, an Elon Musk ally, wants to make Argentina a haven for unregulated AI development. “Whatever the pope says, it will be interpreted as a deep criticism of Milei and his government’s ideological attitude,” said Loris Zanatta, a historian at Italy’s University of Bologna who has closely studied Argentina’s Catholic Church.

“Since Milei is unpopular, it won’t be good for him.” Milei, who grew up Catholic but has talked about converting to Judaism, has long had a confrontational relationship with the church. He once called Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, an Argentine who never visited his homeland in 12 years as pope, “the representative of evil on earth.” A 56-year-old economist, Milei has attracted followers from Washington to Europe for slashing state spending, closing government ministries and dismantling state programs in an effort to rescue a country battered by decades of economic trauma.

His shock therapy has sharply reduced inflation and lowered poverty, but unemployment is high and patience with his policies is wearing thin. In Buenos Aires, a well-known priest who works in the city’s slums and who urged Catholics not to vote for Milei in 2023 has called his policies “inhumane.” Recently, some priests have joined protests against budget cuts affecting retirees and the disabled in Plaza de Mayo, the square that fronts the presidential palace.

Bishops opposed lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 14, while the Catholic charity Caritas proposes legislation to revive mothballed public works projects in poor neighborhoods. “There is a certain state and institutional sadism,” Cardinal Ángel Rossi, the archbishop of Córdoba and Argentina’s second-highest-ranking Roman Catholic official, said at Mass earlier this year.

Milei’s allies have called the criticism unfair, especially coming from priests who they say are closely aligned with a left-wing Peronist movement whose free-spending and protectionist economic policies generated the financial crises that drove Argentines into poverty and led voters to cast ballots for him.

“Some of those in cassocks are campaigning for the return of Peronism,” said Alberto Benegas Lynch, a member of congress. He has urged Catholics to stop attending Mass and giving donations, saying that politicized clerics influenced by socialism are to blame for the decline in church attendance.

“The permanent demonization of the individual and of wealth, along with the romanticization of poverty, always makes them look bad,” he said. Milei has increasingly depicted himself as defending Judeo-Christian values under threat in the West.

“In hell, the interest rate is infinite and credit does not exist in any form,” he said in a speech last month at an Evangelical church. When he took office in late 2023, Milei inherited an economic calamity from his Peronist predecessor, which left a central bank without reserves and a fast-depreciating currency.

His policies brought annual inflation down to 30% from nearly 300%. Today, about 30% of Argentines live in poverty, down from more than 40% when he took office. But Milei has struggled to kick-start a stagnant economy by attracting private investment needed to create jobs as his policies closed construction projects and drove some factories to close, leaving tens of thousands of people out of work.

Nearly 70% of Argentines say the economic situation is negative, according to pollster Aurelio. In a Buenos Aires slum called Villa 21-24, a neighborhood of cramped dwellings on the edge of a railroad track, the Rev. Lorenzo De Vedia, a Catholic priest, says Argentina’s neediest have been left out of Milei’s free-market revolution.

“If inflation has been stopped and poverty has been reduced, it’s not noticeable here in any way, quite the opposite,” said the priest, known as Father Toto. His parish has eight soup kitchens that serve about 200 people a day, but they are under strain as more people seek meals.