Argentina’s President Javier Milei meets Pope Francis whom he once called a ‘filthy leftist’

President Milei, pictured with Pope Francis at the Vatican as the pontiff canonised the first female saint from his native country. Milei has softened his earlier highly critical words when speaking of the pope. Photo: Vatican Media

Alvise Armellini

Pope Francis has warmly embraced the new Argentine president who had been one of his fiercest critics as the pontiff canonised the first female saint from his native country.

Francis led a canonisation mass in St Peter’s Basilica for Maria Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, an 18th-century consecrated lay woman who renounced her family’s riches to focus on charity and Jesuit spiritual exercises.