Pope Leo delivered a stinging rebuke of Javier Milei’s austerity measures on Sunday, telling Argentina that the economy must serve people rather than the reverse. Pope Leo spoke in Buenos Aires hours after landing in the country, on the second stop of a 12-day tour of Latin America, and his words drew rapturous applause from the crowd. “The economy must be at the service of the people, rather than people being at the service of the economy,” he said, in the sharpest intervention yet by the new pontiff in the politics of a country split over three years of deep spending cuts.
The visit is the first by a pope to Argentina in nearly four decades, since 1987, and the church has said it expects 7 million people to attend events during the trip. Pope Leo, 71, arrived from Uruguay on Sunday, three weeks after surgery for lung cancer, and he spoke with Milei present in the audience. His predecessor, Pope Francis, was Argentine but never returned home during his 12-year pontificate, and Leo said he was retracing the steps of his predecessor.
Milei, a self described anarcho-capitalist, has staked his presidency on slashing public spending to tame inflation, and he has described the notion of social justice as “a horror”, “a moral aberration” and “theft” in recent speeches. His austerity drive has produced a rare budget surplus and cut annual inflation from 200 percent to about 32 percent. But the poverty rate rose to 32.3 percent in September, after swinging sharply since Milei took office promising to shrink the welfare state.
Pope Leo and the people hurt by the cuts
Pope Leo put the human cost of austerity at the centre of his first major address on Argentine soil. He spoke of men and women who work hard yet still struggle to cover what their households need, and he said a country could not call its economy a success while such families were left behind. He called for care for pensioners and for people living with illness, dependency and disability, in words widely read as a pointed reference to the government’s cuts to disability assistance.
Leo also spoke up for workers whose pay does not earn them enough to live on. He said growth must benefit all, and he urged Argentina to encourage “whatever creates opportunities” and “stimulates private initiative”, a nod to Milei’s free market instincts. He said the country’s natural resources must serve “the well-being of communities”, language that could be read as a warning against letting the gains of the economy pass ordinary people by.
Pope Leo and the state of Argentine democracy
Pope Leo then turned to the health of Argentina’s democracy, and his words landed as a gentle but plain rebuke of a president known for coarse and insulting public attacks on his critics. He told his audience that strengthening democratic life required a willingness to listen and the careful use of words, and the remark drew one of the warmest responses of the speech.
Milei’s officials had dismissed the prospect of a political clash before Leo arrived, and they had sought to play down the differences between the pope and the president over spending cuts, social justice and artificial intelligence. The speech showed those differences in the open, and it set the tone for a visit that many Argentines hope will help heal a nation split between supporters and opponents of the president.
What the visit means for Milei
The visit is the most politically delicate of the pope’s three nation tour of South America, and it comes at a hard time for Milei. His government has won praise for cutting inflation, but the poverty figures and the cuts to disability support have given his critics a target. Pope Leo did not name Milei in the passage on the economy, but no one in the crowd doubted who he meant.
Pope Leo will spend the coming days in Argentina, where the church expects 7 million people at events. The speech in Buenos Aires was his first word on Argentine soil, and it put the human cost of austerity at the heart of the visit.