With seven mouths to feed, Mirta Franco Godoy knew she had to find work fast.
In 2001, Argentina’s economy came crashing down amid mounting public debt, economic instability and a run on the country’s banks.
Her family had previously managed to get by with odd jobs, including tailoring and seamstress work. But as the economic crisis deepened, those earnings were no longer enough.
Desperate to make ends meet, many Argentines began sifting through trash, collecting cardboard and other recyclable materials to sell to companies. Known as “cartoneros,” or waste pickers, they became part of a growing informal economy. At the time, Argentina had no widespread municipal system for separating recyclable materials from ordinary trash, instead sending most waste to landfills.
“We started collecting cardboard because we were struggling to make ends meet,” Godoy told Catholic News Service in a Nov. 9 interview.
During her first year as a waste picker, Godoy recalled preparing a large pot of food for people living on the streets when Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, then-archbishop of Buenos Aires and the future Pope Francis, appeared.
As she began lifting the heavy, hot pot to distribute the food, Cardinal Bergoglio intervened.
“He wanted to carry the pot, but we wouldn’t let him,” she said. “But he insisted that we do it together.”
Argentina gave the Catholic Church its first Latin American pope but never welcomed him home during his 12-year pontificate. Now Pope Leo XIV has come to a country where Pope Francis’s memory remains a source of both pride and political controversy, retracing his predecessor’s footsteps while advancing his vision of a Church close to the poor.
Throughout his visit, Pope Leo’s itinerary has been closely connected to Pope Francis’s years in Argentina, including stops at Buenos Aires Cathedral, where Cardinal Bergoglio served as archbishop from 1998 until his election as pope in 2013, and the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione de Claypole, a charitable institution associated with his ministry.
At the Catholic University of Argentina, where the Argentine pope once served as grand chancellor, Pope Leo addressed workers, business leaders, trade unions and popular movements Nov. 9, emphasizing the dignity of work and the responsibility of governments and businesses to protect vulnerable workers.
He specifically mentioned waste pickers, farmers and artisans as examples of grassroots movements that organize themselves to address economic hardship, recalling Pope Francis’s longstanding support for such workers.
Pope Leo said those movements advocate the three principles Pope Francis frequently identified as essential to social justice: “tierra, techo y trabajo” – land, housing and work.
The pope emphasized that economic activity must serve human dignity rather than reduce workers to their productivity, drawing on the social teachings of both Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIII.
He also defended the role of workers’ associations and trade unions in protecting people excluded from formal employment, calling on public authorities to promote stable policies that foster employment and social inclusion.
For waste pickers like Godoy, organizing collectively transformed what began as a means of survival into a movement seeking recognition, labor protections and a greater voice in Argentine society.
Initially, waste pickers faced resistance, particularly from police, but grassroots organizing eventually helped them establish cooperatives and join a union of informal workers.
Under previous government programs, some received a supplemental payment equivalent to half the minimum wage, while cooperatives gained access to spaces where workers could sort cardboard, plastic and glass for sale to larger companies.
There are now approximately 6,000 waste pickers in Buenos Aires, Godoy said.
One of the movement’s leaders, Sergio Sanchez, was invited to Rome for Pope Francis’s inaugural Mass in 2013 and subsequently participated in dialogues with Vatican officials and popular movements on social inclusion and labor rights.
Pope Leo’s itinerary reflected his predecessor’s longstanding relationship with the poor and marginalized in Buenos Aires, where he was known for traveling by public transportation and personally engaging with people living in poverty.
Marian Father Diego Maximino, an Argentine priest now based in Washington, said Cardinal Bergoglio was deeply involved in the daily lives of ordinary Argentines.
Although some disagreed with his political positions and theological approach, Father Maximino said Pope Francis’s commitment to mercy, particularly toward the poor, was widely recognized.
“He was like a prophet,” the priest told CNS in an Oct. 22 interview by phone.
Yet Pope Francis’s willingness to challenge political leaders and established interests also contributed to his complicated relationship with his homeland.
Argentina’s last papal visit was in 1987, when St. John Paul II visited for the second time.
David Lantigua, an associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in Latin American Christianity, said Pope Francis knew how easily the Church could become entangled in Argentine politics and may have feared a visit would be interpreted as an endorsement of a particular political administration.
“I think it was just too close to home. I think he probably did have the intention of going back,” Lantigua told CNS Oct. 30, adding that Pope Francis became more explicit about that desire toward the end of his life.
While Pope Francis was frequently outspoken in his criticism of economic and political systems, Pope Leo has largely advanced similar concerns through an emphasis on dialogue, social cohesion and institutional responsibility to protect the human dignity of all people.
Addressing President Javier Milei, government authorities, civil society leaders and diplomats Nov. 8, Pope Leo called for the protection of democratic institutions and urged public officials to exercise power in service of the common good.
“Democracy, then, is also a part of Argentina’s heritage that needs to be safeguarded,” he said, emphasizing the importance of listening to people with opposing views and seeking agreement.
He also stressed that political authority carries an obligation to promote the well-being of all citizens, including those struggling to support their families despite working.
Pope Leo’s remarks came as waste pickers and other informal workers continued to face economic uncertainty under Milei’s administration. The president, who was elected in 2023, has been categorized by international media as a far-right politician.
Godoy said government payments supporting waste pickers had disappeared, along with funding for improvements in the impoverished neighborhoods where many of them live.
“Everything has gone backwards,” she said.
The pope did not directly address those claims, but in his meeting with workers the following day, he argued that neither governments nor corporations should replace grassroots initiatives, but should instead support and strengthen them.
His message echoed Pope Francis’s longstanding defense of popular movements and their role in advancing social justice.
Throughout his Argentina visit, Pope Leo repeatedly invoked his predecessor’s teachings on poverty, human dignity and the Church’s responsibility toward marginalized communities.
During his four days in the country, Pope Leo drew immense crowds, with an estimated 2.5 million people attending his Nov. 9 Mass, another 1 million gathering for a prayer vigil in Buenos Aires Nov. 10, and more than 2 million at his Nov. 11 Mass outside the Basilica of Our Lady of Luján, according to local estimates.
At a Nov. 10 Mass in Córdoba where an estimated 650,000 people attended, Pope Leo again recalled Pope Francis’s insistence that the poor need not only material assistance but also the love and spiritual care of the Church.
In a meeting with clergy Nov. 10, Pope Leo emphasized the need to provide spiritual care to the poor, a priority his predecessor had championed as archbishop through his support for the “curas villeros,” that is, priests who live and minister in Buenos Aires’s impoverished settlements.
Earlier, during a Nov. 9 visit to the Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione de Claypole, which serves people with disabilities and other needs, Pope Leo emphasized the inherent dignity of every human life.
“Today I would like to affirm that your lives are not a burden on society,” he said. “A nation’s progress is also measured by how it welcomes all people with disabilities and particular needs.”
Lantigua said Pope Francis’s emphasis on the poor reflected a broader transformation of the Latin American Church following the Second Vatican Council, when bishops increasingly emphasized pastoral ministry, social justice and the Church’s responsibility toward marginalized communities.
“You can’t villainize Francis for caring for the poor. He is the pope after all,” Lantigua said. He sees Pope Leo as continuing that mission while placing particular emphasis on unity and avoiding the divisions that characterized parts of Pope Francis’s pontificate.
“Unity is going to be found in proximity to Christ, and where do we know we can find Christ? In the poor,” Lantigua said.
For many Argentines, Pope Francis’s legacy remains deeply personal even as his relationship with the country’s politics continues to provoke debate.
Marta Ramos, speaking to CNS Nov. 8 among crowds gathered to welcome Pope Leo in Buenos Aires, said the enthusiasm surrounding Pope Francis’s election eventually became complicated as political groups sought to appropriate his words and actions.
“I think that’s why he didn’t come here, so as not to divide this country even further,” she said.
Ramos said she believes Pope Leo is following a similar path, but with a different temperament.
“I think he’s very reserved. You have to listen to him,” she said. “He’s very profound, but he’s not as expressive as the other popes.”
Meanwhile, the Argentine Church continues some of the pastoral traditions Cardinal Bergoglio established, including an annual outdoor Mass in Buenos Aires’s Plaza Constitución dedicated to waste pickers and other marginalized workers.
Although Pope Francis never returned to Argentina as pope, his successor has brought his message back to the country where much of it first took shape.
With two Holy See flags flying in front of the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s presidential offices, Rosa González told CNS that Pope Leo’s visit offered hope for greater unity in a country marked by political divisions.
“I believe Francis left a great legacy, but I think Leo’s new dawn awakens in us another chapter of the papacy,” she said.
