Pope visits struggling Argentine home for people with disabilities to press economic message

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Pope Leo XIV doubled down Monday on his call for Argentina to look out for the weakest and most vulnerable as he visited a home for people with disabilities in a symbolically powerful rebuke of President Javier Milei’s austerity measures.

On his first full day in Argentina, Leo made a pilgrimage to the Cottolengo Don Orione in the suburb of Claypole, south of the capital. The institution, founded by an Italian priest in 1935, shelters over 400 vulnerable people with disabilities across its 50 hectares (123 acres).

The center, known as the “city of charity,” has been severely impacted by Milei’s austerity measures, which have hit the healthcare and social service sector hard . Milei has taken his signature chain saw to specialized therapy programs that for decades have represented a lifeline for many of the estimated 5 million Argentines with disabilities, freezing payments and dismantling a vital safety net.

Combined with inflation, the center has reported extreme economic distress and Leo’s visit comes just days before the Senate takes up a disability funding bill that Milei opposes.

The visit kicked off a busy day for Leo in which the American pope, fulfilling the unfinished legacy of Argentine Pope Francis , is emphasizing Catholic social teaching that calls for putting the weakest and most vulnerable at the center of economic policy.

Upon arrival Sunday and with Milei at his side, Leo cited Francis’ frequent refrain that money must serve and not rule: “The economy must serve the person, not the person the economy,” Leo said in his first speech in Argentina.

It’s a message Leo is expected to repeat later Monday when he meets with business leaders, union representatives and leaders of popular movements at the Catholic University of Argentina.

Among those invited are domestic manufacturers battered by cheap imports since Milei scrapped long-standing trade barriers, and members of Argentina’s largest labor confederation, who took their worries over job losses and shrinking wages to the Vatican in September.

Since Milei took office in late 2023, his austerity agenda has made him an icon of the global conservative backlash against the liberal establishment. Much like its allies in the Trump administration , his government has portrayed the cuts to disability programs as part of a reform process aimed at eliminating fraud and waste in the federal bureaucracy.

For many Argentines, the highlight of the day was to be Leo’s late-morning Mass at the “Monumento a los Españoles” that was expected to draw as many as 2 million people. It's the very same venue where, nearly 40 years ago, St. John Paul II became the last pontiff to celebrate Mass in the South American country.

Thousands of people arrived at midnight to secure a better spot for the Mass, Leo’s first in Argentina.

“We were dating when John Paul II visited 40 years ago,” recalled Teresa Videla, 63, who was accompanied by her husband and youngest son. “And now it’s very special for us to come back and see the visiting pope. So much has happened in the world, in the country, and we now have six children and 15 grandchildren.”

Leo has been welcomed by huge and adoring crowds in Buenos Aires, the second stop of his three-nation tour of South America.

Late Sunday, groups of faithful chanting “Pope Leo, Pope Leo,” and “Long live the pope” gathered in front of the Vatican's embassy, or nunciature, where Leo is staying. A smiling Leo stepped outside to greet them and offered his blessing.

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