In Argentina, debates over Pope Francis' legacy lead to one question: Why didn’t he return?

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Jorge Mario Bergoglio, born in Buenos Aires, never set foot in his homeland after becoming Pope Francis in 2013.

That left many of the feeling puzzled and snubbed by the world’s first Latin American pope. The question of why he never returned quickly dominated airwaves and headlines on Tuesday in Buenos Aires.

Francis, , said little about his decision to steer clear of Argentina. But Vatican insiders and interlocutors said the pontiff wanted to avoid getting swept up in the that characterized his country.

“It’s sad, because we should have been proud to have ,” said Ardina Aragon, 94, a longtime friend and neighbor where Francis was born in 1936. “I think there were political factors that influenced him.”

Francis, a devotee of soccer, tango and other signature aspects of Argentine culture, was known to have tense relationships with some of his country’s leaders. His ideological clash with , who took office in 2023, created even more challenges.

Francis' popularity declined at home

with an ecstasy otherwise reserved for the country's three . But that initial excitement over the former archbishop of Buenos Aires .

A recent Pew Research Center report showed that Francis’ popularity had dropped more in Argentina than anywhere else in the region over the last decade. About 64% of respondents said they had a positive view of Francis in September 2024, compared with 91% in 2014.

“There are many among us who think he made mistakes. Not everyone in our community is proud of the association,” said Adriana Lombardi, 62, a retired teacher in Buenos Aires, referring to traditionalist Catholics in Argentina and beyond who accused Francis .

Some in Buenos Aires felt slighted by Francis' avoidance of Argentina.

“Despite his history here, it seems like he doesn't care about us," said Bruno Rentería, 19, who was praying in front of an icon of the Virgin Mary at the Basílica de San José de Flores in Buenos Aires. Older churchgoers recalled the very confessional where Bergoglio, at age 16, had first heard the call to the priesthood. “It's odd because it seems like he has time for everyone else.”

Political tensions began with the Kirchners

Some trace those tensions to when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires during the leftist tenures of the late former President Néstor Kirchner and his successor and wife, the divisive , whose strain of populism dominated Argentine politics for decades.

Francis and Fernández de Kirchner were unfriendly neighbors in Plaza de Mayo, the central square that hosts both the government headquarters and the cathedral where Francis delivered homilies during much of her presidency from 2007-15.

From the pulpit, Francis criticized the “exhibitionism” and autocratic tendencies of Argentina’s political class — a subtle dig that the Kirchners interpreted as a direct attack. His support for the Vatican’s conservative positions on key social issues deepened rifts with Fernández de Kirchner’s progressive government as it expanded sex education and, in 2010, — a first for Latin America.

Perhaps most significantly, supporters of the Kirchners accused Francis of complicity in , when as many as 30,000 people were estimated by human rights groups to have been killed or simply “disappeared.” Francis was head of Argentina’s Jesuit order during those violent years, when the who worked with the poor.

Francis rejected the accusations of complicity. In his 2024 memoir, “Life: My Story Through History,” he recalled hiding wanted activists and pressing military officials behind the scenes to free two abducted priests from his order.

Eventually, Kirchner's social welfare policies resonated with Bergoglio. The two drew closer after he became pontiff and set about softening the image of an institution that had long appeared forbidding.

"Conservatives in Argentina failed to understand his change of attitude," said Sergio Berensztein, who runs a political consultancy in Buenos Aires.

Branded by critics as a ‘Peronist pope’

Unsettled by his , right-wing critics branded Francis the “Peronist pope” — a reference to the founded by three-time President Juan Domingo Perón, who employed an authoritarian hand and powerful state to champion social justice causes.

From that point on, Berensztein said, Francis “felt everything he said or did would lead to fighting on either side of the divide.”

Francis' politics came under more scrutiny in 2016, when he wore an unusually grim expression while posing for a photo beside , Kirchner’s conservative successor, whose austerity program battered the poor.

The awkward photo op paled in comparison to Francis’ discomfort with what followed.

Milei, a former television pundit and corporate economist, called Francis an “imbecile” and “the representative of the Evil One on Earth" before . He lashed out at the pope for promoting social justice, supporting taxes and sympathizing with “murderous communists.”

Francis expressed sympathy for the strife of Argentines pulled into poverty as they bore the brunt of Milei’s fiscal shock therapy, over what he called a “save yourself approach” to doing politics and publicly criticizing Argentine security forces for using pepper spray against Argentine retirees protesting for better pensions.

The Vatican described a meeting between as “cordial,” but ideological differences resurfaced with the ascension of , .

Since Trump's reelection, Francis has on the administration, criticizing its .

“Francis cultivated a social doctrine in the church that generated opposition, particularly among conservatives in the United States,” said Sergio Rubin, an Argentine journalist and Francis' authorized biographer.

Beloved by followers as a ‘pope of the people’

After a dozen years of papal travel — — Francis to visit his native land last year. Nothing came of it.

“He went to Brazil, Peru, Chile; he passed over our heads,” said Lucia Vidal, a retired nurse who attended Bergoglio’s Mass when he was archbishop. “That pains me."

In contrast, Pope John Paul II less than a year after becoming pontiff in 1978. His successor, , chose his native Germany for his first foreign trip in 2005.

Other Argentines seemed less indignant about the snub and more grateful for his contributions to the impoverished neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, where Bergoglio leading processions, creating a cadre of priests who follow in his footsteps and founding shelters for homeless addicts and community centers on violence-scarred streets.

“I can’t express what his humility, his open hands, meant to me, my family, my neighborhood,” said Angela Cano, 51, at a Mass held in his honor Monday at Villa 21-24, a neglected suburb near the railroad. "We saw up close how he was the pope of the people. He helped us find God.”

Back in Flores, Carlos Liva, 66, a retired cab driver, said that he couldn't begrudge the pope for prioritizing the rest of the world after spending most of his years in Argentina.

“It's clear that he felt at ease in Rome,” Liva said. ”In his own country, people found every reason to question him."

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Natacha Pisarenko contributed to this report.

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