Argentinian President Javier Milei welcomed Pope Leo XIV at Jorge Newbery airport near Buenos Aires on Sunday, beginning the first papal visit to Argentina since 1987, Al Jazeera reported.

Milei and his sister, presidential secretary Karina Milei, greeted the pontiff after his three-day visit to Uruguay, the first stop on his Latin American tour.

The arrival comes amid tensions between Milei’s government and Argentina’s Catholic Church over austerity measures. Church leaders have criticised cuts to social spending and programmes supporting poor people, while Milei has defended the reductions as necessary to bring inflation under control. Some clergy have also taken part in protests against the measures, according to Al Jazeera.

Leo’s itinerary includes a welcome ceremony at Plaza San Martin and a meeting with Milei at the Casa Rosada presidential palace. He is scheduled to remain in Argentina until Wednesday, meeting officials, diplomats and civil society representatives, visiting a prison and celebrating Mass in Buenos Aires, Lujan and Cordoba province.

He will then travel to Peru, where he spent years serving as a bishop.

The trip is Argentina’s first papal visit since John Paul II travelled there in 1987. Leo’s predecessor, Francis, was born in Buenos Aires but never returned to his home country as pope before his death in 2025.

“Leo is going to make the visit that Francis never did,” Reverend Lorenzo “Toto” de Vedia, who works with poor communities in Buenos Aires, told Al Jazeera.

Sources