The Archbishop of Córdoba (Argentina), Cardinal Ángel Sixto Rossi, referred to the current social reality in Argentina, with the focus of his concern on poverty. “We are in the middle of a storm,” he said.
In an interview with the streaming program The voice livethe archbishop admitted that this government “did not inaugurate poverty or social problems”, while observing that the situation became exacerbated in recent times: “There is no clear response, even diagnoses can be inaccurate, but in any case there is a difficult uncertainty,” he said.
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As for inflation, whose figure in July was 1.9% according to INDEC (2.1% less than the same period of the previous year), the purple said that “it gives psychological tranquility, it would not say in the pocket, but more in the head.”
“No Macroeconomics Cena”
However, he evaluated: “My equation is that inflation fell and poverty climbed, one sees it on the street. I have no doubt that there are poorer, the situation in everyday life is increasingly difficult, at the door of the church and in the street. The macroeconomy will go well, but no macroeconomy is dinner,” he said.
As for the ways of communicating adopted by the government, with disqualifications and insults, Cardinal Rossi considered that “we are at a level, I dare to say, decadent.”
“The aggressiveness, that verbal violence, usually goes towards physical violence, and that is what is happening. And from physical violence the door opens all against all, and we are almost at the door of that,” he lamented.
He also said that in matters such as “aim at the disabled and sick children (…) we are humanly scratching the miserable.”
Rescue the good from one side and the other
“When the extremes of old men and children are mistreated, we are scratching the scope of decline and bad driving, not only of the government, right? Of the church too, of all areas”; He reflected.
Asked about the corruption scandal in the dome of the Milei government, with alleged coimas in the area of disability, the Archbishop of Córdoba admitted: “I still do not dare to judge because it is half uncertain.”
In that context, he said: “The good ones had arrived to hit the bad.
“I am the good and the other is the bad one? I think there are good and bad from both sides. What you have to do is rescue the good from one side and the other,” he said.
As for the Church’s link with the provincial government, he indicated that there are contributions from the province with popular dining rooms and programs to combat drugadependence.
Bets and drug trafficking
However, Cardinal Rossi considered that one of the pending issues is the need to regulate online bets, highlighting the damages generated by young people to the betting platforms.
“I have two suicides of young people desperate for not being able to return the debts, so they had to explain to their parents,” he said.
The hardest thing about the social situation, he warned, is the advancement of drug trafficking. “When the State is withdrawn, let’s say so, they advance,” he said. “You have your kids not to eat and you have to be very virtuous so as not to turn on,” he explained, while among the authorities there is “a kind of closing your eyes and, why not, complicity.”
In that context, he said that the Church “has always been containing, fundamentally, but also alerting the leaders to take measures to try to avoid”, and recalled that the focus must be in “the common good of the people and the care of the simplest.”
Pope Francis, “a different man”
The cardinal referred to his proximity to Pope Francis, who says he was “a different man”, because “every time they wanted to pigeonhole – and for that we Argentines are sent to do – we have been wrong, because Bergoglio breaks all the structures.”
“It is often said that sometimes the absences give the measure of the presences, it is said. I believe that that has happened to us,” he reflected. “We have begun to value it seeing the reality of a world that has cried it, while we smile.”
When Francisco died, Cardinal Rossi traveled to Rome. On that moment, he said: “It was a very strong thing the presence and affection, I would say, of ‘all the furs’, because he had from the king, the sheikh, to the lady who cooked in Santa Marta, who cried like a girl, and told me:’ The Pope did not die, my father died.”
“The Swiss guards, who are all like that, half embalmed, did you see? They cried as boys,” he recalled.
Francisco was “possibly the strongest leader in the world, except for us, the Argentines, who are great,” he joked.
Asked about a possible visit from Pope Leo XIV to Argentina, he said: “I suspect, I suppose it will come, not exclusive, but possibly, they say, in a girl, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, we will see. I think so because he wants, that consists of me,” he said, anticipating that it could be in the second half of the next year.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.