Leo XIV walked in Argentina in the footsteps of Pope Francis

At every stop on his visit to Argentina, Leo XIV walked in the footsteps of his predecessor Francis, to the point that, when saying farewell, he wrote on social media that Argentina "has two popes," one born here and another by adoption. Although the Argentine Church had anticipated that Leo XIV's visit was that of the heir of Peter and not that of Bergoglio's successor, perhaps to strip the trip of political meanings, the Pope embodied Jorge Bergoglio's ideas on social, economic and ecological matters, placing his legacy at the center. Leo XIV, upon arriving in Argentina from UruguayLUIS ROBAYO - AFPHis references were explicit, with quotes from his documents and mentions of his phrases, but also implicit, through his gestures. He mentioned him directly 27 times in ten of the eleven speeches he delivered in Argentina and alluded to his words, without naming him, another 27 times. Even in his final tweet, as the plane took off for Peru, he expressed: "You can say that this country from now on has two Popes: one who was born here and another by adoption." Robert Prevost also showed himself to be in tune with Francis when, on Tuesday in Córdoba, he evoked the Cura Brochero and Mama Antula, the two Argentine saints his predecessor canonized in 2016 and 2024, and when he mentioned at dusk on Monday, in the Metropolitan Cathedral, Friar Mamerto Esquiú, Bishop Enrique Angelelli, murdered during the military dictatorship in 1976, and Eduardo Pironio, the three beatified during his pontificate. At the vigil in Palermo and before saying farewell at the Mass in Luján, he was explicit again. "Today, in the house of our Mother of Luján, my thoughts go in a special way to our dear Pope Francis, who always carried the 'little dark Patroness' in his heart," said Leo XIV before nearly two and a half million people gathered in front of the basilica. Two faithful hold images of Pope Leo XIV and Pope Francis at the vigil in the city of LujánSoledad AznarezThe Pope said: "He taught us with his life and continues to show us from the place he chose to be buried, so close to Santa María, to love and venerate her always. In fact, many times his words of farewell were: 'May Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin watch over you.'" "Patroncita morena" was how Bergoglio referred to the Virgin of Luján, because her original terracotta image has that color. In the front rows of the crowded Mass were members of Cáritas and the Hogares de Cristo, the recovery centers for people affected by addictions that Jorge Bergoglio started in Buenos Aires. Leo XIV celebrated his last Mass in Argentina wearing a light blue and white chasuble - the colors of the Virgin's mantle and the Argentine flag - with the image of the country's patroness embroidered on it. When he pronounced Francis's name, the square applauded and did not let him finish the sentence. In the homily, in which he again mentioned poverty and the lack of work, the Pope asked of the country: "Argentina, rise and walk!" At the end, he gave thanks "for what was lived" during his visit to the country, "the cradle of our dear Pope Francis," and bid farewell with a heartfelt greeting: "Farewell forever, my dear Argentina!" Jorge Bergoglio saying Mass with Robert PrevostOn Tuesday night, after returning from Córdoba, the Pope led a vigil at the Monument to the Spanish with more than a million young people. There he took up another famous formula of Bergoglio's, the "todos, todos, todos" ("everyone, everyone, everyone"), used by Francis to open the doors of the Church to those who had drifted away, during the Lisbon World Youth Day in 2023. Leo XIV rewrote it: "Everyone toward Christ, everyone with Christ, everyone like Christ." And he explained what he meant in each case. Leo XIV appealed to the image Francis used to condemn false idolatries, such as money. "Do not kneel before that which cannot give you life!" he urged the young people, whom he also warned about drugs and hatred on social media. The last day of his visit began at the Villa Devoto prison, a penitentiary tied to Bergoglio's biography. As archbishop, he went there every Holy Thursday to celebrate Mass and wash the feet of the inmates; he spent a Christmas with them and visited the wing for inmates with HIV. At the meeting, in the prison gymnasium, the Pope heard the testimonies of two inmates and a detainee who had regained his freedom. The memory of Francis was invoked by Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva in his welcome: he recalled that his predecessor "came to this prison every Holy Thursday to celebrate the Eucharist and perform the sign of the washing of the feet." Leo XIV also left a political phrase: "Impunity is the fruit of corruption." Everyone recognized Francis's words when Leo XIV ended his visit in Córdoba. Before priests and seminarians gathered in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, he repeated the most remembered phrase of the Argentine pope: "Dream of a Church that keeps stirring things up, as your countryman Francis asked you!" he said. He said that this stirring must lead the Church "to every corner" where it "makes the Gospel of Jesus Christ resound everywhere." Bergoglio had asked young people to "stir things up in the dioceses," in Rio de Janeiro, on July 25, 2013, during World Youth Day. He had been elected only four months earlier. Now, 13 years later, another pope, Leo XIV, spoke those words in Argentina. The Pope not only mentioned Francis, but cited his five fundamental documents: Laudato si', Fratelli tutti, Evangelii gaudium, Amoris laetitia and Gaudete et exsultate. But he also honored him with his gestures. On Monday evening, in the Metropolitan Cathedral, where Bergoglio was archbishop until March 2013, Leo XIV approached the memorial honoring his predecessor, accompanied by a group of children, left flowers and remained praying before the plaque. There he received a rose and a letter from eight of Francis's direct nephews and nieces. "The condition of San Juan de Letrán as the Cathedral of the Bishop of Rome gives this celebration a particular meaning of communion with the see of Peter, and that bond becomes especially close when celebrating it in this Cathedral, whose chair our dear Pope Francis occupied before being called to shepherd the universal Church," he said there. That same morning, at the Mass before more than two million people at the Monument to the Spanish, he had already introduced him as "our beloved Pope Francis, who was bishop of this city," before later citing the document Amoris laetitia, his exhortation dedicated to the family. On Sunday, upon arriving in the country, when he gave his first speech at the Palacio Libertad, before President Javier Milei, he recalled that for 12 years the Church heard the voice of Francis and that now he himself was traveling the reverse path by arriving "in the homeland where Pope Francis began a story." He also alluded in that speech to Francis's words when he stated that "the homeland that today is in your hands will tomorrow be the inheritance of others." The phrase he repeated most during the visit to Argentina comes from the social doctrine of the Church, but Francis turned it into a banner and a claim. Leo XIV pronounced it on Sunday, before the Government: "The economy must be at the service of the person, and not the person at the service of the economy." He repeated it the next day at the Argentine Catholic University (UCA), before business leaders, unionists and leaders of popular movements. That speech at the UCA was the most closely aligned with Bergoglio's thought. The Pope cited Fratelli tutti to define work as a central dimension of social life, which goes beyond earning money, and spoke of "social friendship" as the bond that unites the neighbors of the same country, and "political love," which is the highest expression of politics in its service to the common good. Robert Prevost took up Francis's idea of the three "T"s. The Argentine pope presented it in 2014 at the World Meeting of Popular Movements. It referred to land, roof and work (tierra, techo y trabajo). And he took from one of his catecheses from January 2024 the idea of greed as a disease of the heart. "Depriving a person of work is not simply denying them an income; it is gravely wounding their dignity," he said. And he warned: "Where the domination of a few is the law, work becomes exploitation." With Laudato si', he recognized the right to private property, but reminded it of its "social mortgage" and asked that a company's success be measured by the common good and not only by profit. He also proposed a "culture of encounter," another Bergoglio formula, to promote that economic growth translate into integral human development. On Monday night he returned to the subject before the bishops. He asked them to "attend to those who live in poverty, lack employment or do not have decent housing." Once again, work and roof. Laudato si', Francis's ecological encyclical, was present throughout the trip. Leo XIV called for caring for creation, people and communities, and for an ethics equal to the challenge of artificial intelligence, citing Laudate Deum, Francis's 2023 document. At the UCA he went further and warned that there is no genuine progress if ecosystems are degraded or costs are shifted to the most vulnerable. He did not say "common house," but the words of Laudato si' were recognizable. "The banners of Artificial Intelligence are raised without safeguarding human dignity," he warned, in a reference to his own document on the subject. The visit to the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione in Claypole was worthy of Francis, who in his day entrusted seminarians to live at least one month in the work before ordination. Leo XIV was moved: "Your lives are not a burden to society, they are a blessing," he told them, in the most direct phrase of the trip against what Bergoglio called the throwaway culture. And he added that a nation's progress is also measured by the welcome it gives to people with disabilities. To close, he cited Francis by name: "Our dear Pope Francis also longed for this and, therefore, he wrote: 'We are all called to be saints by living with love and offering our own witness in the occupations of each day, wherever each one finds themselves.'" At the Palacio San Martín, the Pope met on Monday afternoon with representatives of Christian communities, Judaism, Islam, other faiths and indigenous peoples. He opened the event with a dedication: "Our encounter rests on the pillars of dialogue and friendship, which were fundamental in the life of Pope Francis," and proposed strengthening them "by building new bridges," to use another Bergoglian metaphor. "Let us make our own the prayer that my predecessor, Pope Francis, has left us," he urged, alluding to the Prayer to the Creator from Fratelli tutti. The Pope recited it in full, including its petition: "Inspire us with a dream of reunion, of dialogue, of justice and of peace." Afterwards, he lit a candle and the audience observed a minute of silence for the victims of violence. Before the bishops, Leo XIV proposed a pastoral plan that builds on Bergoglio's. He invited them to "go out to evangelize" and asked them to safeguard communion "so that the joy of the Gospel reaches everyone," as if it were Evangelii gaudium, his predecessor's document. He then cited Francis's homily at the shrine of Aparecida, in July 2013, in Brazil. Bergoglio recalled there how, at the general conference of the Latin American episcopate held in 2007, the bishops felt "encouraged, accompanied and, in a certain sense, inspired by the thousands of pilgrims." Leo XIV asked them to continue working "from the teachings of the Aparecida Document, as a luminous wake." Bergoglio had been the president of the commission that drafted that document. "As Francis, my venerable predecessor, reminded us, the poor have need of God and of people who express with their lives the strength of Christian love," said the Augustinian pope in the Buenos Aires cathedral. Leo XIV always cited Francis as one more link in the continuity of the social doctrine of the Church and emphasized his teachings on acting as a "Church that goes out," as well as the importance of work, charity and social justice. Already boarding the plane bound for Lima, the Pope left a final message on his X account, and Francis was present once again. "I give thanks to God for what I experienced during my visit to Argentina, the cradle of our dear Pope Francis," he wrote. He thanked them for the affection with which he was received and said he had felt "at home." And he went further: he said he had been adopted by Argentina. At the close of his presence in the country, he entrusted the Argentines "to the maternal protection of Our Lady of Luján," with the farewell he had shared at the Mass in Luján: "Farewell forever, my dear Argentina!" By Hernán CappielloType of work:News Original