If pope visits Argentina, a new archbishop will await him in Buenos Aires - one who is very like him

By David Agren, OSV News

(OSV News) -- Pope Francis has said he hopes to visit his native Argentina in 2024, a journey that would mark his first trip back to his homeland since being elected pontiff in 2013.

"My idea is next year; we will see if it can happen," the pope said May 25 to a video audience of students celebrating the 10th anniversary of Scholas Occurrentes, the educational movement he founded.

If the Argentina trip does happen, Pope Francis will be hosted by a new archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva, whom the pontiff appointed as the successor of Cardinal Mario Poli May 26.

Pope Francis earlier in 2023 mentioned wanting to finally travel to Argentina. Because he has yet to visit since being elected pope 10 years ago, this has caused some confusion in the South American country, especially after he has traveled to other nearby countries and parts of Latin America.

The pope told the Argentine newspaper La Nación in March that he had planned to travel to Argentina in 2017, along with neighboring Chile and Uruguay. But the pope had to change the dates to accommodate requests in Chile with elections there. He eventually traveled to Chile and Peru in January 2018 instead of Argentina.

Pope Francis said in the interview, "So Argentina is still waiting. I want to go, I hope to go."

Observers in Argentina say the pope has preferred to avoid election campaigns and political matters in a deeply divided country as people on both sides attempt to portray Pope Francis as an ally.

"The thing is that there are elections in Argentina all the time just as in other countries. … So it is very difficult to think that a trip will take place in the future. It seems that he will not come," Mariano De Vedia, an editor and religion writer at La Nación, told OSV News.

"He cannot invest much time dealing with the Argentine mess," Sergio Berensztein, an Argentine pollster and political analyst, told OSV News. "He’s been around the region, he could have visited Argentina, he didn’t want to do that, not to get involved in local politics. Whichever government (in power) would have benefited from the visit."

Argentina holds general elections Oct. 22 amid an economic crisis with inflation running above 100% and poverty affecting six out of 10 children, according to the Social Debt Observatory at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina.

In his homily for the annual Te Deum Mass May 25, marking Argentina's Independence Day and attended by senior Argentine politicians, including President Alberto Fernández, Cardinal Poli called for unity and dialogue.

He called the elections "an excellent opportunity for candidates to express their vocation of service and take advantage of their words to teach us democracy -- with clear and realistic proposals and without belittling those competing."

Buenos Aires is Pope Francis' native diocese, and the new archbishop doesn't only share a name with Pope Francis -- born Jorge -- but also a love for the poor and excluded.

After his priestly ordination in 1997 for the Diocese of San Isidro, then-Father García Cuerva began his ministry in the poor neighborhoods of the suburbs. He was parochial vicar of Nuestra Señora de la Cava Church, located in La Cava, Beccar, a shanty town in northern Buenos Aires. In 2017 he was named an auxiliary bishop of Lomas de Zamora and since 2019 has been bishop of the Diocese of Río Gallegos.

For years, he served as parish priest and prison minister, as well as in prison ministry.