The Tedeum of May 25 had not finished cooling when an archive video of the Archbishop of Buenos Aires was already circulating on the networks, Jorge García Cuervawhich added fuel to the debate. In the images – of a mass whose exact date was not specified – the religious says verbatim: “We all once said ‘I want to be a Peronist, I play with this idea, I want a different country, I want a different world, I want to witness good news, I want to fight because I want to continue spreading hope'”.
The context of the homily suggests that the mention of Peronism operated as a analogy about militant commitmentrather than as a political statement. But the literality of the phrase, stripped of that frame, fueled the controversy that had already been established since that morning.
During the Tedeum in the Metropolitan Cathedral, before the president Javier Milei and a good part of the cabinet, García Cuerva had asked to end “the division and polarization” and warned: “Every man for himself is nothing more than the expression of cruel individualism”. He also mentioned retirees, children, people with disabilities and precarious workers among the most affected sectors: an inventory that the ruling party read as a list of grievances.
The harshest response came from the deputy of La Libertad Avanza Alberto Benegas Lynchwho accused him in Sergio Massa and Kirchnerist leaders. The Government, on the other hand, preferred not to argue: it awaits confirmation of the Pope’s visit Leo XIV and avoided a new break with the Church. The opposition, predictably, embraced the homily: leaders of Peronism, the UCR and Pro agreed to take up the archbishop’s message to demand dialogue and consensus.
It is not the first time that the archbishop has been targeted for his links with the Peronist space. In 2016, when he was auxiliary bishop of Lomas de Zamora, he starred in a mass at the villa La Cava before militants of the movement. And in 2023, after his appointment as archbishop of Buenos Aires by Pope Francis, images of him together with figures from the Frente de Todos went viral. The file, if any, has a habit of returning.
