ARGENTINES reacted with euphoria to the news on March 13th that Jorge María Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, had been elected as the new pope. Hundreds of the city’s faithful gathered in its cathedral after the white smoke was released to celebrate, and local media filled their programming with elated commentary from celebrities. After Argentina tussled with the IMF, litigious creditors and the Falkland Islanders in the past month, the choice of Pope Francis was a much-needed balm for the country’s image abroad. However, it could spell further political trouble at home for Cristina Fernández, Argentina’s president.
Catholicism has long been influential in Argentina. Although the country is more socially liberal and less pious than many of its Latin American peers, 77% of the population still identifies as Catholic—more than in many other nations in Latin America, where evangelical Protestantism has established firmer roots. Historically, the Argentine church has positioned itself as a non-partisan political advocate, clashing with the government over education, marriage and sexual issues. Tension between church and state reached a high point during the government of Juan Perón, who intervened in religious schools and tried to legalise divorce and prostitution. Many of Perón’s supporters suspected the church’s hand in the 1955 coup that toppled him, which was carried out mostly by staunchly Catholic military officers, though there is no evidence of its direct complicity.
The church was also widely accused of sympathising with Argentina’s 1976-83 military dictatorship, which killed as many as 30,000 people. The Catholic archbishop at the time publicly and falsely denied that anyone who had “disappeared” during the “Dirty War” had been murdered. The future pope, who was then the head of Argentina’s Jesuits, has been accused of failing to advocate on behalf of the victims, although he says he sheltered and lobbied for them in private.
The church has far less pull now than it did in the past. However, it continues to speak out against policies it opposes. The government of Néstor Kirchner, who served from 2003 to 2007, regularly clashed with Catholic officials over abortion and contraception. The relationship has grown even more distant under Ms Fernández, Kirchner’s wife and successor. She consistently eschewed Cardinal Bergoglio’s Te Deum mass, an event traditionally attended by Argentina’s presidents, opting instead for ceremonies outside of the capital. Moreover, the church was enraged by Ms Fernández’s successful campaign in 2010 to legalise gay marriage. Cardinal Bergoglio organised mass demonstrations to protest against the law, calling it an attempt to “confuse and deceive God’s children.” The president called the church’s reaction “medieval.”
Moreover, Cardinal Bergoglio often attacked the Kirchners for what they consider to be their greatest political strength: efforts to reduce poverty. He accused the government of having “opted to exacerbate inequality”, and called the “unfair economic structures” that he said remained in place under their leadership a violation of human rights. The president has fairly retorted that poverty has fallen significantly since her husband first took office—although mainstream economists tend to believe that improvement has come in spite of the government’s macroeconomic policies rather than because of them. But in the battle for symbolism, the humble Cardinal Bergoglio had the ostentatious Ms Fernández cornered. He often took public buses to violent slums around Buenos Aires, showing up unannounced to aid local priests. In contrast, the president’s taste for handbags with five-digit price tags has made her protests of devotion to the poor sound rather hollow.
Although Francis will move to Rome and no longer have time to focus on local politics, he will immediately supplant the country’s greatest football players (Diego Maradona, who is a public supporter of Ms Fernández, and Lionel Messi) as the world’s most famous Argentine. That should ensure that any continuing criticism of Ms Fernández by Catholic officials will get much more attention than it has so far. Iván Petrella, an Argentine liberation theologian, suggests that corruption and inflation are political weak points for the government that the church might highlight. So far the president has been cordial to the new pope, announcing that she would attend his inauguration in Rome and sending him a professional, if brief, letter of congratulations. But there is little doubt that his selection has left a bittersweet taste for her. “Cristina is used to being the only power,” says Sergio Berensztein, a professor at Torcuato di Tella University in Buenos Aires. “Now she has an insurmountable rival. You can’t question the authority of the pope.”
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