After embrace, pope and Argentina's Milei meet amid speculation Francis might finally go home
ABC News
Despite their rocky start, Argentine President Javier Milei and Pope Francis appear to have hit it off
ROME -- Despite their rocky start, Argentine President Javier Milei and Pope Francis appear to have hit it off as they met Monday amid speculation that the Argentine pontiff might finally go home for a visit later this year.
The Vatican said the two men met for an hour and 10 minutes, an unusually long audience by Francis’ standards.
En route to his audience, Milei stopped his motorcade along the main Via della Conciliazione boulevard leading to the Vatican to greet well-wishers and then continued on to the Apostolic Palace for the meeting. He gave Francis some of his favorite Argentine dulce de leche alfajor cookies and lemon biscuits, while Francis presented him with the documents of his papacy and a medallion.
A warm tone was already set the previous day, when Milei embraced Francis with a bearhug at the end of a Mass to declare Argentina’s first female saint. A beaming pope quipped: “You cut your hair!”
Milei’s office posted photos of the embrace on X and wrote: “May God bless Argentines and may the forces of heaven accompany us.”
