The New Yorker:

Amid the extreme political polarization in his home country, the Pope found himself at odds with nearly every President.

By Graciela Mochkofsky

No one is a prophet in his own land, Jesus warns in the Gospel of Luke—not even, apparently, the Pope. Francis was broadly popular around the world, especially among liberals. Toward the end of his life, though, his approval ratings dipped in the United States, where he had angered conservatives, and though he still enjoyed more than seventy-per-cent approval in some Latin American nations—Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru—that support was falling. But in no country was the drop sharper than in his native Argentina, where, last year, his favorability had fallen twenty-seven points below the ninety-one per cent he had received at the time of his election, a dozen years ago.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with the extreme political polarization that has become characteristic of Argentina. In that climate, Francis, too, was seen as a divisive figure. In a majority-Catholic country, he was the voice of a Church that, traditionally, sided with the conservative élites. He found himself at odds with almost every administration of the past two decades. And, once he went to the Vatican, as the first Argentinean Pope in history, he never, unlike his two predecessors, visited his home country. Even so, he continued to fuel polarization there—but this time, to just about everyone’s surprise, from the left.

Go to link