Do Roman Catholics KnOw about

Humble pope has complicated past: the Dirty War of Argentina

Questions from a Dirty War

WASHINGTON They are impolite questions, but they must be asked: What did Jorge Mario Bergoglio know, and when did he know it, about Argentinas brutal Dirty War against suspected leftists in which thousands were tortured and killed? More important, what did the newly chosen Pope Francis do? When a military junta seized power in 1976, Bergoglio elected Wednesday by the College of Cardinals as the first Latin American to become pope was the head of the Jesuit order in Argentina. His elevation to the papacy occasioned great joy and national pride in his homeland but also, for some, brought back memories of Argentinas darkest and most desperate days. In other South American countries that suffered under military rule during the 1970s, the Catholic Church served as a focal point of resistance. In Chile, for example, the church crusaded for human rights and pressed the government of Gen. Augusto Pinochet to account for the many activists who disappeared into custody, often never to be seen again. The dictatorship in Argentina was the most savage of all. At least 10,000 and perhaps as many as 30,000 people suspected of leftist involvement were killed. Victims would be snatched from their homes or places of work, interrogated under torture for weeks or months, and then executed. Some were dispatched by being drugged, loaded into aircraft and shoved out into the wide Rio de la Plata or the Atlantic Ocean to drown. The church in Argentina, however, was comparatively passive in the face of this horror some would say complicit. Church leaders never confronted the military regime the way their counterparts did in Chile; nor did they encourage or even permit grass-roots activism at the parish level, as developed in Brazil. On the contrary, the church allowed Argentinas ruling generals and admirals to cloak themselves in religiosity and claim that somehow, in their sinister rampage, they were serving Gods will. Questions about Bergoglio involve an incident that took place in 1976, shortly after the military seized power: Two Jesuit priests who had been under his command were kidnapped, held without charges, interrogated and tortured. They were finally released after five months; several laypeople arrested in the same operation were killed. Both priests were followers of the left-wing liberation theology movement; Bergoglio was not. As their superior, he had told them to cease the work they were doing in a slum neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. The allegation is that Bergoglio, knowing the men were in danger of being targeted by the military, withdrew the Jesuit orders protection from them because of their disobedience effectively throwing them to the wolves.

This charge was first made in 1986 by Emilio Mignone, one of Argentinas most respected human rights activists, in a book about the relationship between the church and the dictatorship. Left-leaning journalist Horacio Verbitsky took it up again in his 2005 book El Silencio. Bergoglio has consistently denied the allegation. He told a biographer that the priests left the Jesuit order voluntarily and that he appealed privately to leaders of the junta for the priests release an intervention of the kind that might have saved their lives. Bergoglio also told the biographer that he often allowed people sought by the military to hide on church property. In testimony before an official tribunal in 2010, he said he was unaware of the military governments worst excesses until after the fact. He specifically denied knowing that babies born to pregnant detainees were forcibly taken from their mothers and given to politically connected families for adoption although there is evidence suggesting he did know about this practice. Last year, Argentinas bishops under Bergoglios leadership issued a blanket apology for having failed to protect the churchs flock during the dictatorship. That the church was tragically remiss is no longer in question, if it ever was. Now that Bergoglio is Pope Francis, his record and recollections of nearly 40 years ago are important not so much because of what he did or did not do but because of what lessons he did or did not learn. There were Catholic prelates who openly collaborated with the dictators and those who openly opposed them. Bergoglio was somewhere in the middle. He disapproved, surely. He did what he could. But by his own admission, he didnt try to change the world. Now he has more than the duty to lead 1.2 billion Catholics. He also has a chance to atone.
Mar 15, 2013 by EUGENE ROBINSON, Washington Post Columnist

Humble pope has complicated past

The new pope and Argentina's dirty war

STORY HIGHLIGHTS NEW: Vatican says claims about Pope Francis during dictatorship are false, defamatory Francis has a long record as a church leader He is lauded by many as a humble man Others question his role during Argentina's dictatorship

(CNN) -- Pope Francis is being painted as a humble and simple man, but his past is tinged with controversy surrounding topics as sensitive as gay marriage and political atrocities. Questions linger about Francis' actions during the nation's dark days: the so-called Dirty War, when Argentina was ruled by dictators. The gay marriage issue came to the forefront during Francis' political fight with Argentina's president. The conservative pontiff may hold firm on some issues, experts say, but he may be flexible on others. "If you think that (Francis) isn't going to change anything, you're wrong," said Gustavo Girard, a retired doctor who knew Francis during his early years in the priesthood. "But is he going to approve of gay marriage tomorrow? No."

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Don't be surprised, Girard said, if the new pope shows flexibility on contraceptives, but don't expect him to budge on the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion. There's been no shortage of praise for Francis as a passionate preacher and pragmatic man who prefers public transportation to private cars. It goes to his reputation as an independent thinker. But look deeper into Francis' history to see a more complicated man who's been formed by the times he's lived in. Dark times

Possibly the darkest period during Francis' rise to power took place when he served as the nation's top Jesuit. In 1976, during Argentina's dictatorship, the navy kidnapped priests Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics. Some have accused Francis, then provincial superior for the Society of Jesus, of not doing enough to assert his influence and free them. They were found five months later. The incident led to rumors and allegations that Francis was complicit in the dictatorship's appalling atrocity -- that he didn't do enough to expose it and perhaps was even partly responsible for the priests' prolonged detention, said Jim Nicholson, a former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Although the allegations against Francis have never been proved, they continue to haunt him, so much so that the human rights group Center for Legal and Social Studies in Argentina opposes Francis' selection as pope. Situations relating to the priests' kidnappings "have not been clarified," said the group's director, Gaston Chillier. Many of the allegations against Francis were researched by Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky, who wrote a book about the church's role during the dictatorship. In a 2010 column, Verbitsky alleged that Francis had lied under oath during an investigation into the theft of babies from prisoners during the dictatorship. Francis testified that he never knew about the baby-stealing until after the dictatorship had fallen, Verbitsky wrote, but a victim Verbitsky interviewed claims that Francis knew about it at the time. She said she had written to Francis about it. Nicholson said there's no evidence to support the allegations. The Vatican pushed back Friday against the accusations. The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, dismissed the claims as false and defamatory. "The campaign against (Jorge Mario) Bergoglio is well known and goes back to many years ago. It was promoted by a defamatory publication," Lombardi said at a Vatican news conference, using the name that Francis used before he became pope. Argentine judicial authorities questioned Bergoglio once, but nothing was imputed against him, Lombardi said, adding that Bergoglio denied the allegations against him.

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Meet Pope Francis

"His role is well noted on how he promoted reconciliation in Argentina," he said. The fight Then there's the fight between the archbishop and the president. In 2010, President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner led a battle to pass a bill to legalize gay marriage. Francis, then archbishop of Buenos Aires, put himself right in the middle of the fight, calling the proposed legislation "a destructive attack on God's plan." With a front-page counterpunch, the president said the church possessed "attitudes reminiscent of medieval times and the Inquisition." The bill eventually became law, and Francis left the battlefield defeated. But some supporters hold it up as evidence of his traditionalist views. Perhaps it's no surprise Kirchner gave Francis a rather dry congratulations after his election, said Rosendo Fraga, an Argentine political analyst. The president failed to even mention that Francis is the first pope from Argentina or the Western Hemisphere, a signal that her government may feel at odds with the church. Was it a snub?

Fraga said Francis "was a critic of corruption, of social inequality, drugs, human trafficking, which in reality wasn't an agenda of confrontation, but that the government perceived as an agenda of confrontation." Girard, the retired doctor who knew Francis during his early years in the priesthood, interpreted the war of words differently. Francis was not lashing out at just the bill but at what he saw as a larger effort by the government to divide the country along political lines. This is why the cardinals selected him, Girard said: Francis doesn't fit into a mold. "They can be progressive or conservative," he said. "But they're not dumb." CNN's Jose Manuel Rodriguez contributed to this report.
By Mariano Castillo, CNN updated 2:56 PM EDT, Sat March 16, 2013

References: http://themoderatevoice.com/178788/178788/ http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/world/americas/argentina-pope-profile/