In an interview given July 8, 2019, to the Argentine newspaper “La Nacion,” Pope Francis said, “I would like to visit Argentina next year.” He did so discreetly and prudently, expressing again his desire to travel soon to his motherland.
For the time being, this is the only information offered by the Holy Father regarding this possible Apostolic Visit. He established a probable date with the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, but the precise moment is yet to be defined, reported the newspaper.
The interview’s author explained that the Pontiff wishes “to return to the country of his birth, although fleetingly, next year when the spirit of many Argentines has calmed down after the elections to elect (or re-elect) a President,”
According to journalist Joaquin Morales Sola, it’s no accident that the Pope chose this moment to announce that he’ll go to Argentina in 2020, “most probably in the second semester.” Uruguay might well be included, as it’s a country he has yet to visit,” he added.
Morales also revealed that some Argentine Bishops, with whom the Pontiff spoke recently in their ad Limina visit, advised their compatriot that now is the ideal time to make this trip before any election takes place, so that “no one can then say that he decided to visit his country because one or another candidate won.”
The journalist also said that each act of the Holy Father is seen in Argentina as a gesture to Argentine politics. “The Pope needs Argentine leaders to let him be Pope,” said a Prelate. Morales clarified that, given the “innumerable conflicts inside and outside the Church,” Pope Francis “dedicates very little time (almost none) to his country’s politics.”
An Archbishop, who sees the Pope often, explained: “in an electoral year in Argentina, the Holy Father doesn’t receive any leader of Argentine politics.” He said categorically that the Pope “has no political predilection in the forthcoming Argentine elections — none at all. We never hear him pronounce himself on his country’s electoral process.”
Other topics the journalist of La Nacion” addressed with the Pontiff were his recent meeting with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, the “frictions with the ultra-conservative sectors” of the Church, to which the Holy Father responded: “I don’t confront them. They can say what they wish. I don’t respond.”
