Trees are being planted in the garden.
asserted
Trees → plant → garden
The brightly coloured buildings are getting another coat of paint.
asserted
buildings → colour → paint
The choir rehearses.
asserted
choir → rehearse → ?
Hundreds of other residents, several of them using wheelchairs, practise their positions outside the sanctuary.
asserted
several → use → sanctuary
Excitement is in the air, because on Monday 9 November, the Cottolengo Don Orione – a Catholic-run home for disabled people – will be the first stop on Pope Leo XIV’s first full day of his trip to Argentina.
asserted
Orione → run → Argentina
But the pope’s visit to Claypole, about 26km from Buenos Aires, does not come at an especially happy time for the home, which counts about 400 residents with disabilities.
asserted
which → come → disabilities
Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, has made wide-ranging cuts to disability funding.
asserted
president → make → funding
“[The government] cut off the supply of medications, special foods and diapers.
asserted
government → cut → medications
They haven’t delivered any since last November.
asserted
They → deliver → November
The matter is in court,” said the facility’s coordinator, Fernando Montero.
asserted
coordinator → say → court
The pope and Milei, he said, “have completely opposing ideologies”, arguing that the pope teaches that a person’s worth is not measured by whether they are productive, whereas Milei is a “hyper-capitalist” who believes only “those who compete the most should be rewarded”.
asserted
who → say → ideologies
Pope Leo’s three days here – he began a three-country trip through South America in Uruguay on Friday, and will finish with six days in Peru – will be the first papal visit to Argentina since John Paul II in 1987.
asserted
he → begin → 1987
His predecessor, Pope Francis, who was Argentine, never returned during his papacy.
asserted
who → return → papacy
The trip could prove uncomfortable for Milei.
uncertain
trip → prove → Milei
A far-right libertarian economist who campaigned with a chainsaw as the symbol of his promised spending cuts, Milei called Francis an “imbecile” and “the representative of the Evil One on Earth” in 2020, and accused him of promoting communism, saying social justice was theft.
asserted
justice → campaign → communism
Milei claims to have apologised when he met Francis in the Vatican in February 2024.
uncertain
he → claim → February
Since taking office the previous December, he has slashed public spending, which the government says was needed to curb inflation.
asserted
government → take → inflation
The thinktank Mate estimates that retirees on the minimum pension – 63% of the total – have lost about 30% of their purchasing power.
asserted
retirees → estimate → power
Last Wednesday at the weekly retirees’ march outside Congress, a man held up a cardboard sign reading, “Save us Pope Leo XIV – Milei is killing us.”
asserted
Milei → hold → us
Last month, Buenos Aires archbishop Jorge García Cuerva said Leo XIV would find “a divided Argentina and a large number of very poor brothers and sisters.”
asserted
XIV → say → brothers
But the differences between the pope and the president go beyond typical social issues.
asserted
differences → go → issues
In May, Leo XIV called for “disarming” artificial intelligence, while Milei has said he would not regulate AI technology and has instead presented bills to build datacentres across the country and to grant legal status to “no-human corporations”.
uncertain
he → call → corporations
Federico Sturzenegger, a minister in charge of state cuts, says he has used AI to draft legislation.
asserted
he → say → legislation
Milagros Miceli, a sociologist and computer scientist who leads the Critical AI Lab in Berlin, said the “contradiction” between the two is “pretty evident”.
asserted
contradiction → lead → two
She welcomed Leo’s visit, celebrating how the “powerful figure” of the pope intends to put “human beings at the centre by stripping these technologies of the values that are presented to us as taking precedence over humanity.”
asserted
that → welcome → humanity
Juan Grabois, a left-wing Peronist deputy and social leader who served in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said: “The idea of absolute deregulation is at the heart of the president’s agenda, and the replacement of the human element with these forms of algorithmic power has clearly also become a policy priority for the government.”
asserted
replacement → serve → government
As Milei has clashed with Congress over a funding law that remains in limbo, Argentina’s conference of bishops wrote to the health minister, Mario Lugones, on 1 April, denouncing “the serious situation facing numerous institutions dedicated to the care and support of people with disabilities in our country”.
asserted
conference → clash → country
The ministry has met the bishops twice since, in April and again on 5 October, but without resolving the impasse.
asserted
ministry → meet → impasse
The government is trying to downplay potential tensions.
asserted
government → try → tensions
“There’s no way the pope is going to come here to comment on local politics,” Sandra Pettovello, the minister overseeing social policy, said recently.
asserted
Pettovello → ’ → policy
Amnesty International, meanwhile, has written to the pope about Argentina, warning of its “concern about government decisions that affect the exercise of fundamental rights”.
asserted
that → write → rights
All of this will be top of mind when Milei receives the pope at the airport on Sunday.
asserted
Milei → receive → Sunday
From the disability home, the pope will go on to Buenos Aires and meet business and union leaders; then on Tuesday he will celebrate Mass at the grounds of FAdeA, the state-owned military aircraft factory in Córdoba, whose workers have protested against Milei’s cuts.
asserted
workers → go → cuts
Juan Cruz Esquivel, director of Buenos Aires University’s Barometer of Religions and Beliefs, says the itinerary speaks for itself.
asserted
itinerary → say → itself
“I don’t want to speculate [about what the pope will say], but clearly any mention of defending domestic production, labour, disability or social justice in the pope’s rhetoric naturally clashes with the ideology that Milei’s government has been promoting,” says Esquivel.
asserted
Esquivel → want → that
Mariano Oberlin, a Catholic priest in an impoverished neighbourhood of Córdoba, expects the clash to play out diplomatically.
asserted
clash → expect → Córdoba
“Pope Leo has been saying it without confronting, but he keeps upholding the church’s social doctrine as the key axis of his ministry,” Oberlin said.
asserted
Oberlin → say → ministry
“If Milei wants to use him, he’ll probably have to do a lot of juggling to make him say the opposite of what he’s been saying – and of what he’ll surely say when he comes: that the Gospel invites us to feel like brothers, to respect each person’s deep, inherent dignity, and to fight so that this dignity becomes real in access to rights.
asserted
dignity → want → rights
Since Francis’s tenure, social movements in Latin America have come closer to the Catholic church, and Argentina is no exception.
asserted
Argentina → come → church
Grabois, who was part of that process, sees the relationship as a two-way exchange.
asserted
who → see → exchange
…and 15 more, not listed.
The Aporia
