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BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (RNS) — When María Galarza got dressed to attend Mass with Pope Leo XIV on the grounds of Buenos Aires’ Monumento de los Españoles on Monday (Nov. 9), she chose a T-shirt she had been saving just for this day. It read, “Good things take time.”
The last papal visit to Argentina was in 1987, when Galarza was able to see Pope John Paul II from a distance. She, like many other Argentines, had fervently hoped that Pope Francis — perhaps the most famous Argentine of all time — would visit before he died. “But he left a legacy — Leo,” Galarza’s daughter, Julieta Lucero, who was attending the Mass with her mother and brother, said in Spanish.
As Leo holds meetings and prayerful events in Buenos Aires, including Mass for a crowd of 2.5 million (the biggest of his papacy), memories of Francis, the city’s former archbishop who never returned after he became pope, have been omnipresent. Monday night, Leo paused in silent prayer before a plaque honoring Francis at Buenos Aires’ metropolitan cathedral.
At that vespers service, Mendoza, Argentina, Archbishop Marcelo Colombo, the president of Argentina’s bishops’ conference, underscored the pervasive memories of Francis on the trip. He said in Spanish, “We thank God for these years of the Pope Francis pontificate, whom we have scarcely remembered in a sense of homage, but whom we always have in the memory of our heart, recognizing in his legacy an interjection to live, with increasing fidelity, our identity as a church that serves men, that looks to integrate the most forgotten and cast-aside brothers, while not neglecting to profess the name of God.”
Leo himself has walked a fine line between appropriately reverential nods to his predecessor and an apparent desire to keep the focus on the present. His major speeches so far have referenced Francis once or twice, calling him “beloved” and “revered,” as Leo quotes him, but he has not given a reflection solely focused on his predecessor — and his prayer in the Cathedral is the location on the schedule most closely linked to Francis.
That impulse seemed to be shared by the crowd at the Buenos Aires Mass. Most wore T-shirts, hats and flags honoring Leo, rather than Francis, or merchandise featuring the two popes together, which was being sold at a few shops. For many, the presence of Leo himself was highly emotional — several women wiped away tears as Leo entered Monumento de los Españoles in the popemobile.
Marisa Portiello was one who was drying her eyes. “The truth is it’s a blessing for our country that he is coming to visit,” she said in Spanish. Her group arrived 4.5 hours before the Mass, and she said she “conquered” her fear of crowds by praying the rosary and singing as she waited.
Argentine political polarization is longstanding and deep enough that Argentines have a special name for it — ‘la grieta,’ or ‘rift.’ But though current President Javier Milei has slowed runaway hyperinflation, his cuts to the social safety net and education spending have faced protests, and he’s about as unpopular as his U.S. ally, President Donald Trump, with an approval rating at 38.5% in a recent AtlasIntel poll.
María Pilar García Bossio, a sociology professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina, who was also at the Mass, said it presented a level of unity that is unusual in a deeply polarized country at events that do not involve the national soccer team. “It was quite interesting that religion and the Catholic Church could create this idea of friendship and a peaceful moment with joy,” she said.
She said that despite many similarities, Leo is likely being met with a less polarized response than Francis would have been. Many analysts have speculated that Francis had avoided returning to Argentina because he feared being politicized.
With Francis, “the media (would have) read every gesture and every word and if he invited someone or not, and who is sitting in which chair and so on as a problematic political statement,” said García Bossio. With Leo, “it’s a foreign presence, so if he says something, we can take it or not,” she said.
Still, García Bossio said, though some conservative groups are swelling, the anti-Francis contingent remains a minority of the Argentine church, where many priests have been shaped by the institutions that Francis led when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.
Daniel Zucchi, who traveled from the nearby city of Mar del Plata to join thousands of volunteers for the Mass, was one of several Argentines who reasoned that “la grieta,” or extreme political division, made it too difficult for Francis to come.
Zucchi saw volunteering at the Mass, whose grounds were open at midnight the night before and had musical acts before and after, as his contribution to keeping the peace. As part of the Mass’ hydration team, he said in Spanish was trying to “place my grain of sand to help reach balance.”
“I’m seeing many leaders advocate for war, for discrimination, for inequality, for segregation” he said, adding that those voices are louder but not more numerous than those advocating for peace. “We need examples that speak about peace,” he said.
Of Leo’s speeches, the speech with the most mentions — five — of Francis was to the “work community,” a collection of union, business and organizing leaders who met at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina to share testimonies with Leo and hear from him on Monday.
“Popular movements, the popular economy and informal workers — waste-pickers, farmers and artisans — are living expressions of this active subsidiarity, which Pope Francis defended in his addresses to popular movements,” said Leo in one of the citations of Francis.
Hearing from a woman who herself is a waste-picker and who took up the work after being laid off as a victim of the country’s economic turbulence was the most moving moment of the meeting, said Leonardo Vásquez, Buenos Aires’ secretary for Asociación Trabajadores del Estado, a state workers’ union.
“We in Argentina are in the process of 300,000 layoffs, 30,000 businesses closing, the defunding of university education, secondary education, primary education, the defunding of people with disabilities, an attempt to take away pensions,” said Vásquez in Spanish of President Javier Milei’s leadership.
Leo, he said, “ratifies a viewpoint that for us has been our guide for the last 13 years, which was Pope Francis,” said Vásquez. “He put emphasis on the union as an indispensable institution for defending those who don’t have a voice, for preventing the commodification of work.”
Alejandro Gramajo, secretary general for La Unión de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras de la Economía Popular (The Unified Workers of the Popular Economy), said his organization helped arrange for the woman who makes her living waste-picking to speak and that she has organized with them. Through organizing, he said, it “allowed her to win rights and gain a dignified salary,” he said in Spanish.
Gramajo said he hopes the meeting will draw together the business community, academics, popular movement and union leaders. Starting from a “common diagnosis” at the meeting, he said, “we can hopefully construct consensuses on specific policies.”
“The day after the Holy Father leaves our country, we all take on the commitment that ‘no one is saved alone,’” Gramajo said, quoting Francis’ “Fratelli Tutti.”
Before Leo arrived in Argentina, 800 people from popular movements gathered in Buenos Aires to prepare how to communicate Argentina’s challenges to the pope, said César Piscoya, a theologian who was then-Bishop Robert Prevost’s right-hand when he led the Diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, and who is now working on pastoral action programs and networks for the Latin American bishops’ conference.
At that meeting, the people chanted, “Francis and Leo, the same heart,” Piscoya said in Spanish. Leo “is showing us the face of a prophetic church, a Samaritan church,” Piscoya said of the people and places Leo had chosen to visit.
“I think, for the people of Argentina, the visit from Leo is the long-awaited visit from Francis,” Piscoya said.