BUENOS AIRES, November 9 (Aalimi Nation) – Pope Leo XIV began the Argentine leg of his Latin American tour on Sunday, landing in Buenos Aires for the first papal visit to the country since 1987. President Javier Milei received him at the foot of the aircraft stairs, in a Pope Leo Argentina visit that carries unusual political weight.

The papal plane, carrying the pontiff from Montevideo after three days in Uruguay, touched down at Jorge Newbery airport in the afternoon. The apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Michael Wallace Banach, and the country's chief of protocol boarded to greet him first. Milei and his sister Karina Milei, the presidential secretary, then met him on the tarmac, where a ceremony featured military honours, the national anthems of the Holy See and Argentina, and a floral offering from two children.

Argentina is the second stop of a 12-day, three-country tour that ends in Peru on November 16. The itinerary in Argentina includes a welcome ceremony at Plaza San Martín, a meeting with Milei at the Casa Rosada presidential palace, a prison visit, and Masses in Buenos Aires, Luján and Córdoba province. The Pope is due to leave for Peru on Wednesday.

In his first address to authorities, the 71-year-old Pope, the first pope born in the United States, urged political leaders to safeguard democracy and to be careful with their words. "The economy must serve the person, not the person the economy," he said, according to accounts of the speech.

He voiced support for an economy that encourages private initiative, but said policy should also reach the unemployed and retirees, and called for greater public investment in education and vocational training. He added that authority is most authentic when it is exercised as service.

Milei struck a warm tone and described the Pope as an "exceptional figure."

The government has said the trip is purely pastoral. Even so, it comes amid strained relations between the Argentine Church and Milei's administration. His programme of spending cuts, subsidy rollbacks, deregulation and privatisation has helped lower inflation and produced a budget surplus. Real wages, however, remain below their level when he took office, and about 300,000 formal jobs have been lost.

Milei also had a difficult relationship with the late Pope Francis, the Buenos Aires-born pontiff, whom he criticised over taxation and social programmes. Francis, who died in 2025, never visited Argentina as pope. Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva of Buenos Aires has presented Leo's visit as a chance to heal divisions between rich and poor and between left and right.

The visit also takes place against a changing religious landscape. A Pew Research Center survey found the share of Argentines who identify as Catholic fell from 71 per cent in 2013-14 to 58 per cent a decade later, although Catholics remain the largest religious group in Latin America.

After the Plaza San Martín ceremony and the talks at the Casa Rosada, Leo is scheduled to celebrate Mass in the capital before travelling to Luján and Córdoba province. He then continues to Peru, where he served for years as a missionary.