Buenos Aires, Apr 21 (AP) The faithful in Pope Francis' hometown lit candles in the church where he found God as a teenager, packed the cathedral where he spoke as archbishop and prayed Monday in the neighbourhoods where he earned fame as the “slum bishop." For millions of Argentines, Francis — who died Monday at 88 — was a source of controversy and a spiritual north star whose remarkable life traced their country's turbulent history.

Conservative detractors criticised the only Latin American pope's support for social justice as an affinity for leftist leaders.

They pointed to his warm meetings with former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a highly divisive left-leaning populist figure whose policies many Argentines blame for the nation's economic ruin. They compared their enthusiastic encounters to his curt meeting with centre-right former President Mauricio Macri, captured in an unusually stern-faced photo in 2016.

“Like every Argentine, I think he was a rebel,” said 23-year-old Catalina Favaro, who had come to pay her respects. “He may have been contradictory, but that was nice, too.” At his regular 8:30 a.m. Mass, Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva recalled Francis' dedication to the less fortunate.

“The pope of the poor, of the marginalized, of those excluded, has passed away,” García Cuerva announced. Alluding to Francis' legacy, he added: “He was also our Pope, of the Argentines, whom we didn't always understand, but whom we loved.” Vatican observers have long described Francis' decision never to visit his homeland after becoming pontiff as an aversion to his country's polarizing politics.

Tensions reached a head under current libertarian President Milei, who insulted Francis as a “filthy leftist” and “the representative of the evil one on earth” before Milei took office in December 2023.

They had seemed to reconcile during a meeting in Rome last year. But when police lashed out at retirees protesting for better pensions in Buenos Aires, Francis broke his customary silence to chide Milei on the impact of an austerity program: “Instead of paying for social justice, they paid for pepper spray,” he said.

Milei couched his condolences with a nod to those misunderstandings.

“Despite differences that seem minor today, having been able to know him in his kindness and wisdom was a true honor for me,” he wrote on social media platform X.

Francis traveled the world — even to neighboring Paraguay and Chile — but never set foot in his homeland after his election in March 2013.

“That's a political decision, there's no doubt,” Alejandra Renaldo, 64, said in a church in the working-class neighborhood of Flores. “Can you believe he never went to his own land? I much prefer John Paul II, he went to Poland, his country, right after becoming pope. He didn't have any political ideas.” At the downtown cathedral where Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was named archbishop in 1998, worshippers bowed their heads in silent prayer. Some wept, ashen. They laid flowers on the steps and affixed rosaries and stickers for Francis' favorite local soccer team, San Lorenzo, on the marble columns.

In Flores, where Bergoglio was born to an Italian immigrant father and a mother of Italian descent, Argentines stopped to gather around the confessional in the church where, as a 16-year-old, Bergoglio had said he first heard the call to the priesthood.

“He was a father to us in Flores,” said Gabriela Lucero, 66, as she rose for Mass in the Basilica of San Jose de Flores. “His primary philosophy was that those church doors remain open to everyone, immigrants, the poor, the struggling, everyone.” With Milei declaring a week of mourning and lowering flags to half-staff, there was a strong sense of grief more palpable nowhere than in the hardscrabble neighborhoods where Francis focused his outreach as archbishop.

His legacy can still be seen in the cadre of priests who have continued working, living and helping the poor in these sprawling districts long neglected by successive governments, where garbage spills onto sidewalks and the stench of sewage wafts over rutted dirt streets.

On Monday, residents of Villa 21-24, a neighborhood in southern Buenos Aires, grew emotional as they remembered Francis visiting regularly to chat with conservative families and cocaine addicts, leading religious processions barefoot in the streets and helping grow their ramshackle church into a place of prayer and spiritual contemplation, a vibrant community center with a garden.

“He was the most humble person in all of Buenos Aires. We'll never see a pope like him again," said Sara Benitez Fernandez, 57, a devout member of the congregation in the district. She choked on her tears as she recalled how he always took the subway and walked, never arriving in a car.

"I have no words, it hurts so much, so much,” she said.

The leader of the church, the Rev. Lorenzo de Vedia, a charismatic, disheveled priest known to most simply as Padre Toto, said the death of his close friend and mentor on Monday left him with a whirlwind of feelings.

“It's a day of pain, but we're not losing the spirit,” he said, as squealing children chased each other outside the rectory. “We carry on and we fulfill his legacy. We're going ahead with the mission that he entrusted to us.” (AP) GSP