Natalia Kidd and Augusto Morel
Buenos Aires, APR 23 (EFE) .- The ‘spirit’ of the late Pope Francis has flown on Wednesday a new protest march of retirees in Argentina, which was once again repelled by the police, a practice that the Supreme Pontiff, a defender of the dignity of the elderly, was emphatically reprobted a few months ago.
This Wednesday has been the first march of retirees after the death of the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, whose death has caused great Congoja in the country that saw him born in 1936.
As they have done for years, retirees have again claimed at the gates of the headquarters of the Argentine Congress for the poor pensions they charge and for controversial decisions of the government of Javier Milei that have affected older adults.
The police once again used riot media when a group of retirees got off the sidewalk and tried to protest on the street, on a zebra crossing.
The security forces threw pepper gas to the protesters and four of them had to be assisted by health personnel, according to official sources to EFE during the march.
“The Pope said that so much money had to be spent on pepper gas and put a little more for the needs of the people. This government, who said that the Pope was the representative of the ‘evil’ on earth, now goes to Rome for the burial,” Ricardo Godoy, a retiree who charges the minimum pension and was reached this Wednesday by pepper gas, told Efe.
In September 2024, during a meeting in the Vatican with social movements, Francisco questioned the repression of retirees who manifest each week ordered by the Milei government, an ultra -right -wing economist who has openly denied the concept of “social justice” defended, among others, by the high pontiff himself.
In that speech, the Pope commented that he had seen a video of how the police repressed retirees and workers with “the most expensive, which is the top quality pepper gas.”
-“It is seen that they had no right to claim their own because they were unruly, communists. The government became firm and, instead of paying social justice, paid the pepper gas. It was convenient. Take it into account that,” the Pope suggested.
Francisco had a particular sensitivity towards the elderly, especially those abandoned, and in 2021 he instituted in the Catholic Church the world day of grandparents and the elderly, which has been celebrated since then the fourth Sunday of July to highlight the value and dignity of the elders.
In a message on the occasion of that day in 2024, the Pope questioned the “very widespread belief that the elderly weigh on young people the cost of the assistance they require, and in this way they take away resources to the development of the country and, therefore, to young people.”
“It is a distorted perception of reality. It is as if the survival of the elderly endangers that of young people. As if to favor young people it was necessary to neglect the elderly or even eliminate them. The contrast between generations is a hoax and an poisoned fruit of the culture of confrontation,” Francisco also warned in April 2024.
At that time, the Milei government had begun to deploy a severe tax adjustment plan, which largely fell to retirees, whose pensions lost value to the inflationary jump of the first months of last year.
“We have been running to be a variable, a number, concluding that if they discard us, it is better for the homeland, which is what this government does by not paying us,” Horacio Moia told Efe, retired.
According to Moia, the voice that Francisco has raised in favor of the elderly “marks that there is a sector of society that does not agree to reduce retirees to a numerical variable.”
“Francisco had a fundamental line, that of respect for the human being, not getting carried away by economic theories that imply that, if they rule out, society will be better. Francisco what applies is the gospel, which calls not to rule out anyone and much less for being old,” he said. EFE
(photo) (video)
