Fernando de la Rúa
Fernando de la Rúa replaced Carlos Menem as president of Argentina in 1999. As an archbishop, Bergoglio celebrated the annual Mass at the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral on the First National Government holiday, 25 May. In 2000, Bergoglio criticized the perceived apathy of society.[127] During police repression of the riots of December 2001, he contacted the Ministry of the Interior and asked that the police distinguish rioters engaged in acts of vandalism from peaceful protesters.[128]
Kirchners


Pope Francis with Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
When Bergoglio celebrated Mass at the Cathedral for the 2004 First National Government holiday, President Néstor Kirchner attended and heard Bergoglio request more political dialogue, reject intolerance, and criticize exhibitionism and strident announcements.[129] Kirchner celebrated the national day elsewhere the following year and the Mass in the Cathedral was suspended.[130] Kirchner considered Bergoglio as a political rival to the day he died in October 2010.[131] Bergoglio's relations with Kirchner's widow and successor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, have been similarly tense. In 2008, Bergoglio called for national reconciliation during disturbances in the country's agricultural regions, which the government interpreted as a support for anti-government demonstrators.[131] The campaign to enact same-sex marriage legislation was a particularly tense period in their relations.[131]
In 2006, Bergoglio publicly opposed an attempt by the Argentine government to legalize some cases of abortion.[132] In 2007, after the government intervened to allow an abortion for a mentally handicapped woman who had been raped, Bergoglio said that "in Argentina we have the death penalty. A child conceived by the rape of a mentally ill or retarded woman can be condemned to death." Kirchner said in response that "the diagnosis of the Church in relation to social problems in Argentina is correct, but to mix that with abortion and euthanasia is at least a clear example of ideological malfeasance."[133][d]
In 2012, Bergoglio participated in the 30th anniversary commemoration of the Falklands War.[135]
On the day before his inauguration as pope, Bergoglio, now Francis, had a private meeting with Kirchner. They exchanged gifts and lunched together. This was the new pope's first meeting with a head of state, and there was speculation that the two were mending their relations