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“Life Triumphs Over Death”: A Missionary’s Hope as Argentina Awaits Pope Leo
After accompanying persecuted Christians in Syria, Argentine missionary Jimena Rodrigo, known as Sister Guadalupe, is preparing to welcome Leo XIV with a message shaped by war, forgiveness and a child’s unforgettable faith.
INTERVIEW | THE CHURCH IN ARGENTINA
Ana Paula Morales (Poli)
11/8/20266 min read
During a visit to Aleppo in 2017, Jimena Rodrigo asked a 12-year-old boy whether he understood that being Christian there could cost him his life. He did. When she asked whether he would be willing to die for his faith, she recalls, he looked surprised and spoke to her about Jesus on the cross.
“You have to suffer something,” she remembers him saying.
Known to many as Sister Guadalupe, the Argentine missionary has never forgotten that exchange. The boy had spent his childhood amid bombardments, attacks and fear. Yet the lesson she took from him was one of faith and hope.
Now, as Argentina prepares to welcome Pope Leo XIV, Rodrigo draws on what she learned alongside Syria’s persecuted Christians to explain why a pope’s presence matters.
“A visit by the Holy Father to any country, to any place, always sows new hope and strengthens its people,” she told Press Crux. “I hope that will be the case in Argentina as well.”
The founder of Nazarenos, a movement inspired by the witness of persecuted Christians, sees the visit as an opportunity to renew faith wherever suffering takes hold: in poverty and illness, in resentment, or in the struggle to remain faithful to everyday commitments.
A pope’s visit after 39 years
Leo XIV is scheduled to visit Argentina Nov. 8–11 as part of his apostolic journey to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. It will be the country’s first papal visit since St. John Paul II traveled there in 1987 — a wait of 39 years, as Vatican News noted in its account of the trip.
Guadalupe describes weeks of preparation and organizing. For her, that activity shows how the significance of the visit reaches beyond practicing Catholics.
“This is a historic event for our people,” she said. “That is why there is so much anticipation and why we are praying so much for the fruits of this visit.”
The arrival also carries a particular emotional weight. Francis, the first Argentine and Latin American pope, never returned to his homeland after his election in 2013. As Reuters recalled, he did not return during his 12-year pontificate, despite invitations from successive presidents.
For Argentines who had hoped to welcome Jorge Mario Bergoglio home as pope, meeting his successor may therefore hold a special meaning: gathering around the pontiff on their own soil, with Francis’ memory present. The itinerary includes a tribute to Francis in Buenos Aires’ cathedral and concludes the Argentine leg at the Shrine of Our Lady of Luján.
Economic stability, families under strain
The visit comes during Javier Milei’s presidency, amid debate over the reach and social cost of his economic policies. According to a Reuters report, the government has sharply reduced inflation and stabilized public finances, while many families continue to struggle to meet basic needs.
Argentina’s national statistics agency, INDEC, put poverty at 32.3% and extreme poverty at 7.5% in the first half of 2026 across the 31 urban areas covered by its survey. Poverty rose from 28.2% in the preceding six-month period.
The government defends fiscal discipline as a condition for sustainable recovery. Social organizations, meanwhile, point to households affected by lost income and employment difficulties. The gap between economic stabilization and daily well-being forms part of the backdrop to the visit.
Leo’s itinerary includes an encounter with representatives of the world of work and a visit to Pequeño Cottolengo Don Orione in Claypole, which cares for vulnerable people. Human dignity and the common good will be among the journey’s central themes, according to its presentation at the Vatican.
What sustained Syria’s Christians
When Guadalupe thinks about the pope’s presence, she returns to the communities she lived alongside in the Middle East.
“The constant closeness of their pastors and the Holy Father gave these Christians I lived with great strength, encouragement and perseverance as they faced and endured suffering and persecution,” she recalled.
Believers know they have that spiritual support, she explained, but meeting in person allows them to experience it in a particularly tangible way. That memory shapes her hopes for Argentina.
The witness of those Christians also lies at the origin of Nazarenos — a name meaning “Nazarenes.” As ACI Prensareported, the initiative began in 2015, when Guadalupe started sharing in Argentina what she had experienced in Syria.
Today, she said, the movement brings together people from different countries and walks of life who commit to praying for persecuted Christians, sharing their testimonies and living their own faith with the same wholehearted commitment.
Forgiveness after devastating loss
One lesson stands out for Guadalupe: the ability to forgive even after suffering irreparable losses.
She speaks of mothers who lost their children and families whose witness she encountered firsthand. “It is something that truly changes so many people’s hearts,” she said.
In the face of resentment, hatred and the desire for revenge, she believes their example challenges the ways people often respond to suffering.
“Persecuted Christians have been an example; they are an example for us,” she said. In the martyrs, she finds a reason to persevere: “They remind us that the victory belongs to Jesus Christ, that life triumphs over death, that he has already won.”
Her concerns about Europe’s Christian identity
Guadalupe also expressed concern about the departure of Christians from the Middle East and what she sees as the weakening of Christian identity in Europe. In her assessment, “there is a plan to Islamize Europe,” whose advance she links to that loss of identity.
From that perspective, she calls on Latin American Christians “to live our Christian identity fully and defend it.” Her warning connects with Nazarenos’ mission: allowing the witness of persecuted Christians to renew the faith of other communities.
The European debate includes official warnings about specific organizations. In May 2025, France’s Interior Ministry published Frères musulmans et islamisme politique en France, a report on the Muslim Brotherhood and political Islamism.
On Oct. 8, 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a strategy against Islamist entryism — efforts to gain influence within institutions and organizations. It identifies transnational networks, including the Muslim Brotherhood, and explicitly distinguishes Islam as a religion from Islamism as a political project.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been subject to counterterrorism measures whose scope varies by country. Egypt designated it a terrorist organization in 2013 and Saudi Arabia in 2014, according to AFP. The United Arab Emirates includes its local branch on its official list.
On Jan. 13, 2026, the United States designated the Egyptian and Jordanian branches as Specially Designated Global Terrorists for providing material support to Hamas. The Lebanese branch, also known as al-Jamaa al-Islamiyah, was additionally designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Those decisions concern specifically identified entities; they do not constitute a worldwide designation covering every organization associated with the Brotherhood.
European researchers have also examined the issue. French anthropologist Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, author of Le Frérisme et ses réseaux, argues that networks emerging from the Brotherhood’s international expansion pursue a project to transform European societies through institutions, education and the production of norms.
Italian researcher Lorenzo Vidino, with Sergio Altuna, examines those networks’ structure, operations and objectives in The Muslim Brotherhood’s Pan-European Structure. French scholar Bernard Rougier edited Les territoires conquis de l’islamisme, a study of Islamist networks’ strategies for establishing themselves in neighborhoods and social settings in France and Belgium.
Cardinal Robert Sarah has likewise warned about Islamization and the loss of Europe’s Christian roots. In an interview published by L’Incorrect on March 26, 2019, he argued that proponents of Islamization sought to spread it worldwide and had the financial resources to do so. He also called on Europeans to recover their Christian identity and defended the cultural integration of newcomers. His assessment is distinct from the academic studies and legal designations cited above.
These studies provide background for examining the organized expansion of political Islamism. They are not interchangeable, nor do they establish all of Guadalupe’s claims about immigration and refugees. The assertion of a general, coordinated plan to Islamize Europe is presented here as her interpretation.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you.”
Asked what she would say to Leo XIV, Guadalupe begins with gratitude: “Thank you. Truly, thank you.”
She sees his decision to maintain the trip after his recent operation as a sign of dedication. “It is a lesson in love; it is a lesson in commitment,” she said.
On that point, the statement reported by Vatican News said the operation had been successful and without complications, that the disease was localized and that no additional cancer treatment was required. Favorable medical assessments supported the decision to proceed with the journey.
For Guadalupe, that willingness to serve points to faithfulness in one’s responsibilities, including when they demand sacrifice.
The child’s words, years later
The conversation with the boy in Aleppo remains with her. His answer — “You have to suffer something” — continues to invite her to see hardship through faith and unite it with Christ’s cross.
For those facing illness or pain, she offers the witness of the martyrs as a source of companionship and hope.
It is also the conviction at the heart of Nazarenos, the one she hopes to bring to the encounter with the pope: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life.”
Photo caption: Jimena Rodrigo, known as Sister Guadalupe and founder of the Nazarenos movement, speaks at a conference in Mexico in 2025. In an interview with Press Crux, she reflected on Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming visit to Argentina and the lessons of faith she learned from persecuted Christians in Syria.
