President of Argentina Javier Milei will meet with Pope Leo XIV in the Vatican in June before traveling to Israel, Argentine outlets reported on Friday.
Milei originally intended to travel to Rome this weekend to participate in the Inauguration Mass of Pope Leo XIV’s Petrine Ministry on Sunday, May 18, at Saint Peter’s Square. The Argentine president cancelled his trip on Thursday, citing scheduling conflicts. Argentina will instead be represented by Foreign Minister Gerardo Werthein and Human Capital Minister Sandra Petovello.
The Argentine outlet Infobae reported that the trip would have complicated Milei’s timely return to Argentina on Sunday ahead of that day’s Buenos Aires local legislative elections, preventing him from voting and accompanying his friend and presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni, who is running for a parliamentary seat.
“He’s staying because he supports Manuel and because he is his friend,” sources from the ruling Liberty Advances Party told the newspaper La Nación, stressing that “there was not enough time” to make the trip to Rome.
President Milei will instead hold a private meeting with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican in June on his way to Israel, where he is scheduled to arrive at the Ben Gurion Airport on June 10 for a two-day visit that will include meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, and a speech at the Israeli Parliament. According to Argentine outlets, Milei will also meet with the families of the Argentines who are still being held hostage by Hamas.
Milei, who was raised Catholic but has been publicly studying Judaism, was among the international heads of state most enthusiastic about the election of Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost Martinez, as the 267th Bishop of Rome. Last week, shortly after the new pope was announced, Milei published an artificial intelligence-created image of a lion in papal regalia. Milei has extensively used lion imagery in the past, as the animal serves as the mascot of his Liberty Advances party and is often directly associated with him.
“THE FORCES OF HEAVEN HAVE GIVEN THEIR VERDICT IN A VERY CLEAR AND RESOUNDING WAY. No more words, your honor. The end,” Milei wrote on social media.
Prior to becoming president in late 2023, Milei had an extremely complicated relationship with Pope Leo’s predecessor, Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Argentina. Throughout his career as an economist and television fixture, Milei issued a barrage of scathing criticism of Pope Francis, accusing him of being a socialist, an “imbecile,” and “the representative of the evil one on Earth occupying the throne of the house of God.”
“Envy was a capital sin. It would be necessary to inform the imbecile who is in Rome [Pope Francis] and defends social justice to know that it is theft and that it goes against the commandments,” Milei said in 2020, “that envy, which is the basis of social justice, is a capital sin and an aberration.”
“I am going to say it up front, the pope is the representative of the evil one on Earth occupying the throne of the house of God,” he continued. “Did you know that the pope promotes communism with all the disasters it caused and that goes against the Holy Scriptures?”
Milei publicly apologized for his past statements and assured the country that Pope Francis would be respected as head of the Catholic Church and spiritual leader of the majority of Argentina’s population should he decide to visit the country under his presidency. Pope Francis, who died in late April, was unable to visit Argentina throughout his papacy.
Pope Francis and Milei held an “enjoyable and very good” telephone conversation in November 2023 shortly after Milei was elected president. Milei met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in February 2024. In April, shortly after Pope Francis passed away, Milei recounted his encounter with him during an interview and said that he personally asked forgiveness for his past harsh criticism.
“Yes, of course I apologized to him. And he told me, ‘Don’t get hot under the collar, these are youthful mistakes,’” Milei said. “I think it was a little more. If I remember correctly, he said, ‘When we are young we all do stupid things.’”
Milei, who described Pope Francis as the “most important Argentine in history,” declared a seven-day national mourning period in late April immediately after the Vatican announced his death.
This week, during an interview with the Argentine television channel Telefe, Milei was asked how he thought his bond with Pope Leo XIV would be, taking into account his relationship with Pope Francis. The Argentine president said that being president helped him understand the magnitude of Pope Francis’ leadership, and asserted that he is “convinced” that he fulfilled the late pope’s request to take care of Argentina’s poorest.
“Let’s see, my relationship with Francis, let’s say, there is one before I met him and then when I met him. The first thing is that, I know it sounds silly, but being an anarcho-capitalist, let’s say, the truth is that the state issues and those things I did not have well internalized, so to speak,” Milei said. “So, today, when I have to lead a country with more than 46 million human beings, that allowed me to understand the magnitude of Francis’ leadership. He was leading 2 billion human beings. It is not a minor issue.”
“Not only that, but also when I met him I asked for his forgiveness. Besides, we had a certain regularity in the dialogue because he told me, ‘Take care of the poorest,’ and I am convinced that I fulfilled it because we took 10 million people out of poverty,” he continued. “And we are going to continue lifting people out of poverty and we are going to continue working.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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