On May 25, Santiago Caputo arrived at the Metropolitan Cathedral with a dark beret, a brown overcoat closed to the neck, a neat hairstyle and a cigarette in his hand. The image triggered an immediate association: Tommy Shelby, the criminal strategist of the fictional “Peaky Blinders”, the series set in Birmingham in the 1920s that Caputo himself recognizes among his favorites. The networks exploded before the mass ended. TN titled one of the most viewed videos of the day “From Peaky Blinder to Tedeum.”
In his homily, Archbishop Jorge García Cuerva drew a precise Catholic analogy: the scribes of Capernaum who criticized the miracles of Jesus were, in his reading, the predecessors of today’s digital haters. “Disqualification, constant aggression, mistreatment, defamation seem commonplace.” Caputo, in charge of the libertarian trolls, listened attentively in the fourth row.
The images of the event, taken by photographer Federico López Claro, began to circulate on the presidential advisor’s official X account with almost no text. López Claro published four images on his own account and Caputo himself intervened with a brief comment about one of them: “The first is a photon.” The chosen photo showed him warmly greeting Eduardo “Lule” Menem, Karina Milei’s main advisor. It was a greeting between the two main advisors – at odds – of the Milei brothers.
The episode could have been a minor act, but it wasn’t. Days before, Caputo had had a public encounter online with Martín Menem, cousin of “Lule” and president of the Chamber of Deputies, within the framework of the libertarian internal dispute that pits the presidential advisor against the axis of Karina Milei and the Menems. The dispute was exposed with the scandal of the @PeriodistaRufus account, which revealed the rift between the two factions of libertarian power.
By pointing out that photo as the highlight of the album, Caputo drew a line without writing it: the conflict has a first and last name, and “Lule” is not on that list. The distinction between the two Menem cousins is not a fraternal detail but a political operation. “Lule” represents the branch with which Caputo can coexist. It is not the first time that they have been seen greeting each other in a friendly manner.
García Cuerva called to “refound the social and political bond between Argentines” and warned that there is a need for leaders who are encouraged to dialogue and encounter. Caputo listened to the homily. Then he opened X and remained faithful to his style.
