STORY: When a papal conclave elevated the archbishop of Buenos Aires to the head of the Roman Catholic Church in 2013, the man who became Pope Francis would also become a world traveler.

Francis would be the first pope to visit Myanmar, the United Arab Emirates, North Macedonia, Iraq, Bahrain, and Mongolia, clocking more than 45 international trips during his papacy.

But he never once returned to visit his native Argentina.

And now, with the 88-year-old in critical condition, battling pneumonia in both lungs, such a return seems unlikely to happen.

Those close to Francis say he worried a visit would have stirred controversy between the political factions at home.

Guillermo Marco was a spokesperson for the pope when he was Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio in Buenos Aires. He said Francis would have loved to come if the timing were right.

“Yes, he would have liked to, if he could have made a simple trip, let’s say, where he came to visit the people he loves and, I don’t know, celebrate some mass for the people. But he is fully aware there is a whole network of supporters and detractors who are fighting over him from one side and the other.”

While Francis has been pope – the first pontiff ever from a Latin American country – Argentina has been rocked by repeated economic crises and political volatility.

The current government is led by right-wing populist President Javier Milei.

Milei once called Francis the devil’s representative on Earth, though he has patched things up since coming into office.

Many of Argentina’s faithful would still have liked to welcome Francis home and remember him as Bergoglio, born in 1936 in Buenos Aires to Italian immigrants.

“That the pope has not come until now hurts me, it hurts me a little, but well, I think that he has his reasons or his opinions and maybe at some point he will change them.”

“I would have liked him to come, but I think the important thing is what he can do for the world, right? And that he has us in his heart, of course.”

Rogelio Pfirter is a former ambassador to the Vatican. He said Francis never forgot where he was from.

“Pope Francis is very Argentine. I have no doubt that everything Argentine and the homeland itself is something that has a privileged place in his head and his heart, but I also insist, the pope is the pope, I honestly think that Francis has stopped being Argentine, he has transformed into the intermediary between God and the Earth.”