Pope sends his US Medal of Freedom to Buenos Aires
Eduardo Campos Lima/Crux• March 19, 2025
Pope Francis has sent the Presidential Medal of Freedom he was awarded by former President Joe Biden to Buenos Aires Cathedral.
Awarded to the Pope a few days before the end of Biden’s administration in January 2025, the medal was officially received at the cathedral in the Argentinian capital with a special Mass on 13 March and will now be exhibited in a museum.
Even though Biden’s reasons for honouring the Pope ostensibly had a humanitarian basis – he mentioned in a previous conversation with Francis his gratitude for the pontiff’s work to alleviate global suffering and in defence of human rights and of religious liberty – politics may have played a role for both of them in relation to the medal.
This is due to their respective countries coming under the rule of Donald Trump and Javier Milei, both of whom adhere to starkly different political ideologies to the more progressive politics of Biden and the Pope. As a result, Biden’s award to the Pope and the subsequent exhibition of it in Argentina are symbolic gestures of such discrepancies and clashes, according to analysts.
The most important distinction awarded to civilians by the US federal government, the Medal of Freedom had been granted to a pontiff only on one previous occasion, when former President George W. Bush gave it to Pope John Paul II in 2004.
“The timing of President Biden’s decision to award the medal to Pope Francis in January 2025, after losing the election to Donald Trump, undeniably carries political significance,” Andrew Chesnut, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, told Crux.
In his opinion, “by bestowing the medal in the final days of his administration, Biden was signaling resistance to the rightward political shift, reaffirming his administration’s alignment with Francis’s progressive moral vision for more just and equitable societies”.
Chesnut continued: “Unlike George W. Bush’s same medal bestowed upon John Paul II in 2004 – rooted in shared conservative values – Biden’s recognition of the Argentine pontiff highlights their mutual commitment to climate action, social justice and more inclusive and equitable societies, all areas where the pope clashes with Trump’s agenda.”
The ceremony of the reception of the medal in Buenos Aires occurred on the day that marked the 12th anniversary of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s pontifical election.
Coincidently, it also happened only one day after a massive protest of retirees against the adjustment of their pensions by Milei’s administration was met with fierce repression by the police, with more than a hundred people being detained and dozens of injured demonstrators. Even a priest, Father Francisco Olvera, was hit and threatened by agents.
If Biden and Trump present different worldviews, Francis and Milei may be even more distant when it comes to social and political ideas. While the pontiff has always advocated welfare policies for the poor, the ultra-libertarian Argentinian political leader’s platform is entirely established on the idea of reducing the size and the spending of the State. Furthermore, Milei not only criticised but also insulted Francis on several occasions over their disagreements over the past years.
According to Carlos Custer, an Argentine labor union leader who was the South American country’s ambassador to the Holy See between 2003-2008, the pontiff has been worried about the rise of a “neoliberal right-wing [movement] that has assumed fascist tones in some countries” along with “groups that attack social rights and the idea of living together”.
He added: “Trump’s policies have nothing to do with Francis’s ideas. Despite some differences between the Pope and Biden – especially when it comes to war [in Ukraine] – I think they have more things in common,” Custer told Crux. “The fact that Biden gave that medal to the Pope means that many in the US think like him.”
Sending the medal to the Cathedral of Buenos Aires may well also be a political gesture by Pope Francis, given that Milei and Trump have a close relationship and share many political ideas.
“Of course, it can be seen as a way of the Church to show its nonconformity with Milei’s decisions,” Fortunato Mallimaci, an expert in religion and a professor at the University of Buenos Aires said.
But society needs to see it [in tangible form] in order to make it a political gesture, he added.
“Someone in the opposition can select that fact and exploit it politically. But that hasn’t been done yet,” Mallimaci said.
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Photo: President Biden at the awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Pope Francis during a ceremony in the White House, Washington, DC, USA, 11 January 2025. (Credit: Cameron Smith/Office of White House.)