Go here to read the story. John Paul II’s beloved Poland was ruled by a Communist regime and that did not stop him from making history altering trips to Poland. Argentinian politics and economics are a mess, but that has been true for the entire life of the Pope. No, there is something in Argentina and his past that the Pope very much does not want to draw attention to. What this is, remains a mystery. PopeWatch does not think the Pope will ever return to his native land.
PopeWatch: Down Argentine Way
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 41 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Bella Abzug was once a candidate in a primary election against another member of Congress named William Fitts Ryan. The returns were arriving at the Manhattan Board of Elections and it emerged that she’d lost her home precinct by a margin of 2-1. A reporter collars Ed Koch, who was there with the Ryan team and asks him for an explanation. Koch, “Her neighbors know her”.
Argentinian politics and economics are a mess
Growth in real per capita income over the last 16 years has been zero, labor market’s depressed (the number of employed persons is about 25% lower than it typically would be in an affluent country with Argentina’s population), and the annual inflation rate is 104% as we speak.
Meanwhile, Chile’s real per capita income has increased by 40% in that time, their labor market is depressed to the tune of 10%, and the inflation rate is 10%. Uruguay’s per capita income has increased by > 60%, their labor market is depressed to the tune of 5%, and the annual inflation rate of late is 7.6%. Some people are just better at what they do than others.
If he visits, may they keep him on his native land forever.
Maybe there’s a sealed indictment.
Art:
I’ve read histories of both countries. Argentina seems full of itself in a way Chile does not. Might be geography that has allowed Buenos Aires to swallow the first country politically and culturally, while Chile’s more scattered communities had a chance to run their own stuff.
On your sealed indictment idea: surely Francis’ enemies could embarrass him just as easily where he is. I hear rumors can fly pretty fast down there and haven’t heard any, and the MSM would love to publicize a pope up on charges.
It could prove difficult to whitewash the mobs of angry protesters carrying signs, pitchforks, torches, subpoenas … he’s liable to get angry and call them all a bunch of lying gossips.
Maybe Francis believes the people of Argentina just didn’t appreciate his greatness, so he’s written them off.
If so, it’s a behavior he’s repeating with the good-sized portion of the Catholic world that’s not impressed with him as Pope.
Might be geography that has allowed Buenos Aires to swallow the first country politically and culturally, while Chile’s more scattered communities had a chance to run their own stuff.
The population of both countries is abnormally concentrated in the capital (about 30%). Uruguay’s even more so. Same deal with Peru, which has had 30 satisfactory years economically.
Art:
Then it must be something in the culture that allows towering self-assurance side-by-side with miserable political and economic performance. The pre-war Germans had the first without the second, the post-war Italians endured the second without the first. Argentina seems stuck with both together. Yet that still doesn’t answer why the Pope wants to avoid his own nation. Local enemies would not let real legal threats sit idle for 11 years. That hand would have been played by now, Could it be fears of a tepid reception, which everyone would contrast with the cheering crowds that greeted JPII in Poland?
No clue. Argentina in the 1920s was one of the world’s affluent countries, with a per capita product that lagged behind only North America, the Antipodes, Britain, and perhaps five countries in continental Europe. Now it’s a middle income country which has fallen behind several Latin American countries, fallen behind every part of Europe bar the Ukraine and a half-dozen Balkan states, fallen behind a half-dozen countries in the Far East, and fallen by several Near Eastern countries as well. That’s what three generations of bad policy choices gets you.