BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Nearly 40 years after the last papal visit to Argentina, many Catholics received the news of Pope Leo XIV’s trip to the South American country in November as a divine sign during economic hardships that have driven millions of Argentines into debt.
The announcement of Leo’s first South American tour comes at a time when the Argentine Catholic Church has been warning of an alarming deterioration in the living conditions of the most marginalized sectors as a consequence of libertarian President Javier Milei’s austerity plan. Since taking office in December 2023, Milei has managed to slow inflation and reduce the fiscal deficit, but at a high social cost.
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An art installation with a message that reads in Spanish: "Here are your people" and that includes a depiction of Pope Leo XIV is on display inside the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
A religious souvenir vendor stands amid pilgrims waiting to enter the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Archbishop Jorge Garcia Cuerva celebrates an outdoor Mass outside the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
A banner of Pope Leo XIV is posted outside the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Pilgrims attend an outdoor Mass outside the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
The decline in wages and pensions, coupled with an increase in the cost of public transportation, utilities, rent and food, has forced millions of Argentines to go into debt to survive.
“I hope the Pope comes to help the poor like me,” said María Ruíz Díaz, a 70-year-old retiree who, as she does every Aug. 7, went to the Parish of Saint Cajetan in Buenos Aires to pray to the Catholic saint of work.
“The country is going through a difficult time; there are many brothers and sisters in need,” said Santiago Olave, 60, among dozens of devotees waiting to enter the sanctuary. “The Pope can open hearts and minds.”
Milei has defended his plan, saying this week: “I am not going to engage in populism. I am going to die with my boots on, doing what is right and doing what is proper. If you want populism, you have other alternatives.”
Coinciding with the announcement of the pope’s visit, the parish placed a cardboard cutout next to the image of the saint, depicting the pope alongside an elderly woman, a woman with a disability in a wheelchair, a homeless man, and a teacher, beneath the inscription “Saint Cajetan, here are your people.”
They represent some of the sectors most affected by the Milei administration’s budget cuts to health,education and vulnerable populations.
“Saint Cajetan, here are your people, who refuse to accept that work is a commodity and that one must have two or more jobs to make ends meet, or fall into the trap of loans that indebt and suffocate so many families,” said the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Monsignor Jorge García Cuerva, as he led Mass on Friday.
“With Pope Leo XIV, we say that economic freedom cannot be absolute and must always be measured in terms of the common good and the dignity of each person,” the archbishop added.
During his stay, Leo will visit the shrine of Our Lady of Lujan, the patron saint of Argentina, in that suburb west of the capital, and the province of Cordoba, the Vatican confirmed.
Leo will visit Argentina, Uruguay and Peru from Nov. 8-11. The schedule of activities has not yet been announced.
The last leader of the Catholic Church to visit Argentina was John Paul II in April 1987. Francis never returned to his native country after assuming the papacy in 2013.
The visit is especially significant because of Leo’s longstanding ties to Peru. The first U.S.-born pope spent decades there as a missionary and church leader and served as bishop of Chiclayo from 2015-2023. He also holds Peruvian citizenship.
Follow AP’s Latin America coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
An art installation with a message that reads in Spanish: "Here are your people" and that includes a depiction of Pope Leo XIV is on display inside the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
A religious souvenir vendor stands amid pilgrims waiting to enter the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Archbishop Jorge Garcia Cuerva celebrates an outdoor Mass outside the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
A banner of Pope Leo XIV is posted outside the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Pilgrims attend an outdoor Mass outside the Church of San Cayetano during the annual pilgrimage honoring Saint Cajetan, the patron saint of work, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Friday, Aug. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia bombarded at least four Ukrainian regions overnight with missiles and drones, killing five people, officials said Tuesday, and Ukraine’s forces damaged another Russian oil refinery in their latest long-range strike.
The ongoing exchange of daily aerial attacks, while positions on the battlefield’s front line barely change, provided a backdrop to the visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the United States.
Zelenskyy was due to meet other world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. The Ukrainian leader is hoping to recruit their help to end Russia’s more than 4½-year-old full-scale invasion of his country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't due to attend the annual event.
The war, which Western officials say has killed more than 500,000 Russian troops, has had global repercussions. Western analysts estimate that Ukraine has recorded more than 500,000 military casualties, including up to 140,000 deaths.
The repeated attacks on Russian refineries, following Moscow’s strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, have caused international shortages of diesel and price spikes, according to Trump. However, the global crunch also came after the Iran war led to curtailed oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.
Zelenskyy also wants help to ensure the flow of Ukrainian grain and other farm products to world markets through the Black Sea. Russian attacks on cargo vessels have severely disrupted Kyiv’s exports, hurting its economy and threatening global supplies.
Russia and Ukraine have in recent years accounted for around 30% of the world’s wheat exports and 12% of corn exports, most of it shipped through the Black Sea. But last month, attacks slashed both countries’ agricultural exports by two-thirds, Thomas de Waal of the Brussels-based think tank Carnegie Europe said in a report Tuesday.
“The lack of that grain in world markets puts several African countries at risk of famine, while world cereal prices, already pushed up by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, could rise even higher,” it said.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday that his country would provide Ukraine with more radars to help protect its power grid.
He said on social media that he discussed with Trump the possibility of a truce between Moscow and Kyiv on strikes on energy infrastructure and a “moratorium” on Black Sea attacks.
Zelenskyy began his New York visit by meeting with U.S. senators, thanking them for what he called strong bipartisan support for Ukraine and for recently passing a tougher Russian sanctions bill that Trump has signed into law.
Peace and security will be closer once the bill is fully implemented, he said.
Zelenskyy said on social media that he briefed senators on his proposals for de-escalation measures that he intends to discuss with Trump later Tuesday.
In Kyiv, Iryna Panina, 36, woke around 2 a.m. Tuesday as a jet-powered Russian drone approached her home. It blew out a window and left her apartment covered in wreckage.
She said she has lost hope in leaders' peace efforts.
“As an ordinary person just trying to live and survive each day, I find it hard to believe they fully understand what’s actually happening, how hard it is, and how much ordinary people are suffering,” she told The Associated Press.
Zelenskyy also plans to again press Trump to send more U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems that Kyiv desperately needs to stop Russia’s ballistic missiles.
Ukraine said that it struck the Kuibyshev oil refinery in Samara, southeast of Moscow, in an overnight attack.
Several drones hit their targets, sparking a large fire at the facility, according to a statement from Ukrainian special forces.
The refinery, owned by Rosneft, is a key fuel supplier for central Russia, producing gasoline, diesel, fuel oil and other petroleum products, the statement said. Ukraine said that it struck the same refinery last June.
One person was killed and four others were wounded in the Samara attack, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said. He said that “the enemy targeted industrial facilities,” but didn’t specify which ones.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday said that its forces downed 297 Ukrainian drones over 14 Russian regions overnight, as well as the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Russia’s overnight attack on Ukraine included anti-ship missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and more than 200 drones, Ukraine’s air force said.
The strikes killed four people in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration. A drone also killed a woman in the northern Sumy region, local police said.
The strikes across Ukrainian regions damaged homes, businesses and storage facilities, wounding at least five people, authorities said. Five people were wounded in the capital, Kyiv, according to officials.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that its forces struck metallurgical and chemical industries, the fuel and energy sector, and the military-industrial complex, as well as port infrastructure facilities in four regions of Ukraine.
They included a Fire Point plant in Kyiv producing components for long-range cruise missiles and a tobacco factory in the central Poltava region used to make small arms ammunition, it said.
Barry Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. AP reporters Volodymyr Yurchuk and Srdjan Nedeljkovic in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Oleksii, a Ukrainian war veteran, clears broken glass inside an apartment building damaged by a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Oleksii, a Ukrainian war veteran, clears broken glass inside an apartment building damaged by a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, a rescue worker put out a fire of a infrastructure facility damaged after a Russian strike on Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2026, a building is seen damaged after a Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
