Newly elected Argentine President Javier Milei is poised to have a frosty relationship with Argentina's most famous and recognizable citizen, Pope Francis.
Milei, an avowed libertarian, won a convincing electoral victory Sunday and will be sworn in as the next president of Argentina next month. Despite having described the Argentine Pope Francis as "the representative of the evil one on Earth," among other insults, Milei and the pope spoke on the phone for the first time since the election on Tuesday.
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"We are pleased to announce that His Holiness, Pope Francis, spoke with our future president to congratulate him and to express his wishes for the unity and progress for our country," a spokesperson for Milei said, according to Reuters.
The conversation was the first of what will likely be many calls between Pope Francis and the man who has called him a communist. In an interview with Tucker Carlson on X, formerly known as Twitter, Milei accused the pope of playing politics and of having an "affinity" for left-wing dictators, such as the Castro brothers in Cuba and Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela.
The pope, for his part, preaches an economic and cultural message that is very much at odds with Milei's libertarianism. While Francis has called on governments to address climate change and poverty, Milei has decried climate change as a hoax and vowed to slash government programs.
But Tuesday's phone call is the first sign that relations between the two leaders may be thawing, which comes as the pope has expressed a desire to return to his native country for an apostolic visit next year.
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Although he was elected pope in March 2013 and has visited dozens of countries in the years since, the 86-year-old pope has not returned to Argentina since he arrived in Rome for the papal election following the resignation of his predecessor, Benedict XVI. Before being elected pope, he served as the archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1998 until his election in 2013.
Milei, for his part, has said that the pope will be welcomed back to Argentina under his administration "not only as head of state but as leader of the Catholic Church.”