Indications are added on the tension in Pope Francis’ relationship with Alberto Fernández

The president’s relationship with Pope Francis is not going through the best of times. The latest symptom was the Pope’s recent letter of greeting to the president for May 25, which is a tradition in Vatican diplomacy. Although this text is still fairly formal, those who have had access to it consider which is even more true this year. “It gives off a great coldness,” they say.

An equally symptomatic fact is that the government this time did not publish the letter. And the efforts of Bugle to get it, they did not succeed. It is true that nowadays the functioning of public administration is minimized by containment in the wake of the pandemic, but the letter arrived before the last DNU and also the press reports are distributed by mail and networks.

Alberto Fernández’s efforts to approve the legalization of abortion in the midst of the pandemic – with its consequences of death and worsening social situation – shocked the pontiff, beyond the project itself. Moreover, the government falsely attributed to him its desire to have a vote as soon as possible.

The Pope also did not like – according to his relatives – that the President requested an audience as part of his recent trip to Europe to obtain support in the renegotiation of the debt with the IMF and the Paris Club. This is because Francisco has been helping for a long time. In addition, the plague regarding the approval of abortion is still open.

In fact, a prominent Argentine bishop has twice met with senior officials in the Foreign Ministry to convey Rome’s desire to postpone the request. The truth is, the hearing ended up being brief – barely 25 minutes – and formal. Quite a message in the best style of fine Vatican diplomacy.

Since then, the ruling party has staged events that have not helped. The most recent was a tweet from the Chancellor in which regretted that the Colombian government did not allow the entry of Juan Grabois as part of a delegation to verify the human rights situation in the country, plunged into serious revolts.

More precisely, in Rome It is not understood why Felipe Solá included a mention that Grabois is a member of the Ministry of the Integral Human Development Service of the Vatican, since he did not travel on behalf of this organization, and involved the Holy See in a movement on a very delicate question.

“A chancellor cannot make this mistake,” they say. In addition to the fact that brandishing the participation of such a controversial figure in Argentina as Grabois in a Vatican instance fuels criticism of the Pope for having accepted his nomination, beyond the fact that it was a proposal of the movements popular in the region.

He was also not happy in Rome that Referents from the ruling party issued a statement calling on the government not to repay debt to the IMF and the Paris Club during the pandemic at a time when Francisco – at the president’s request – is participating in the renegotiation.

“It was completely inopportune”, considered, although the statement can be seen as an attitude of internal consumption. It is also not good that the Minister of the Economy, Martín Guzmán, has been weakened after Cristinismo and La Cámpora prevented him from firing an under-secretary.

Guzmán had received support from Francisco in his arduous task of renegotiating the debt. Two weeks before the president’s visit to the Vatican, he himself had been received by the Pope and shared a meeting hour, in addition to being at the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences outlining his strategy.

Confusion in the Vatican is no less vis-à-vis the Argentine government in all these situations, not to add others that are more internal but no less relevant. In particular, that the climate of confrontation does not diminish – and this also concerns sectors of the opposition – despite the fact that the president had promised “to unite the Argentines.”

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