Sawt Falasteen - Pope Francis's delicate ties with politics in Argentina

"See you soon," then cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was reported as declaring as he left Buenos Aires in 2013 to take up his papal duties at the Vatican.

In the years to follow, the pontiff undertook dozens of foreign visits, including trips in South America to Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Peru.

But he never returned to the beloved city where he was schooled and baptized, where he first felt the call to fight for the underprivileged, and where he fell in love with the San Lorenzo football club -- of which he was the most famous fan.

His every action and statement was "the subject of partisan interpretations" in a country deeply polarized along political lines, papal biographer Sergio Rubin told AFP in 2023.

And visiting under any particular president would have been interpreted as a political blessing.

"It's not easy. One has to deal very carefully with the political leadership here" in Argentina, activist and writer Adolfo Perez Esquivel, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said of the pope's tightrope walk.

- 'Leader of the opposition' -

Already as archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1998, and later as head of the Argentine Episcopal Conference -- the top order of bishops -- Bergoglio was a vocal critic of those people and systems he saw as oppressors of the poor.

This brought him in conflict with some politicians, prompting the former president Nestor Kirchner to once call Bergoglio "the spiritual leader of the opposition."

When first named pontiff, Bergoglio was accused of having had ties with the South American country's 1976-83 military dictatorship, when he was a provincial superior of the Catholic Church.

Two Jesuit priests were detained and tortured during this time, but it was later proved that, contrary to allegations that he had been complicit, Bergoglio had intervened on their behalf.

As pope, he was never shy to speak his mind, earning him the ire of some politicians -- some of whom considered him a rival.

Francis clashed with successive presidents on the left and right over corruption, populism and social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

- 'Political mind' -

The pope, his biographer Rubin said, was "a man with a political mind" and "a vocation for dialogue."

This was perhaps never more evident than in his dealings with Javier Milei, who before taking office as Argentine president in late 2023 accused the pope of political interference and called him an "imbecile" who "promotes communism."

Milei subsequently apologized and was received at the Vatican two months after his election. Photos showed the fellow Argentines smiling and embracing.

The church and state in Argentina, though legally separated, remain closely aligned.

Until a constitutional reform of 1994, only Catholics had the right to become president.

Regardless of their faith or politics, Pope Francis received a succession of Argentine presidents at the Vatican.

"Yes, I am doing politics. Because everybody has to do politics. Christian people have to do politics. When we read what Jesus said, we see that he was doing politics," he said in 2023.

This did not mean picking sides, the pope hastened to add.

Many Argentines nevertheless viewed him as a leftist -- even on the side of "Peronism," the populist socialist movement named after Juan Domingo Peron that dominated Argentine politics for decades.

The pontiff was quoted in 2023 as saying his "writings about social justice led to claims that I am Peronist," but he added, "asserting that is a lie."

Political or not, the pope has consistently advocated for governments to do more to protect and uplift the most vulnerable.

"The state, today more important than ever, is called upon to exercise this central role of redistribution and social justice," he said in a video issued shortly after he received Milei at the Vatican in 2024.

J.Saleh--SF-PST