As President Milei’s austerity hits hard, jobless Argentines appeal to the patron saint of work

Argentinians' annual August pilgrimage to the patron saint of bread and work is even more salient this year as the country grapples with a recession and President Javier Milei's austerity measures.

Struggling to feed her family after losing her job as a cleaner earlier this year, 56-year-old Norma Villarreal went to church Wednesday in the hardscrabble outskirts of Buenos Aires and waited in the pre-dawn darkness for over an hour to petition St. Cayetano, the patron saint of bread and work.

“We are very hungry and we’re tired and since the government never does anything for us, I went to ask the saint,” Villarreal said of the Roman Catholic priest canonized in 1671 for using his family fortune to help the poor of Naples.

Throughout decades of political change in Argentina, the annual Aug. 7 pilgrimage to St. Cayetano Sanctuary has served as a potent, and grim, reminder that in Argentina, economic despair remains a constant. But this year might be unique in one thing: The desperation over rising joblessness that drives Argentines to call on St. Cayetano has been matched by rage at the painful austerity program of libertarian President Javier Milei.

The government’s shock economic measures — aimed at slashing annual public spending by some 3% of the country’s gross domestic product — has created an excruciating recession, pushing up unemployment to nearly 8%.

The aging crowds of pilgrims crossing themselves and clutching rosaries outside the sanctuary have dwindled in recent years — a reflection, observers say, more of the diminishing relevance of Roman Catholicism in Argentina than of any improvement in the unemployment rate, which jumped two whole percentage points in the last five months.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/argentina-milei-austerity-patron-saint-rcna165755

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