Pope and the Dirty War

U-T San Diego
March 13, 2013

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/mar/13/pope-and-the-dirty-war/

In this 2009 photo courtesy of Sergio Rubin, Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio talks with a man as he rides the subway in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Bergoglio, named pope on Wednesday, March 13, 2013, was known for taking the subway and mingling with the poor of Buenos Aires while archbishop and became the first pope ever from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.

Pope Francis has been criticized by some for his actions years ago during Argentina's "Dirty War."

Many Argentines remain angry over the Catholic Church's acknowledged failure to openly confront a right-wing dictatorship after a 1976 coup that was kidnapping and killing thousands of its citizens as it sought to eliminate "subversive elements."

Under his leadership, Argentina's bishops issued a collective apology in October 2012 for the church's failures to protect its flock during the 1970s. But the statement blamed the era's violence in roughly equal measure on both the junta and its enemies.

That statement came far too late for some activists, who accused Bergoglio of being more concerned about the church's image than about aiding human rights investigations in Argentina.

Bergoglio twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in court. When he eventually did testify in 2010, human rights attorney Myriam Bregman said his answers were evasive.

At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio. One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests - Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics - who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.

Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary, behind-the-scenes action to save them. Bergoglio never shared the details until he was interviewed for a 2010 biography.

Bergoglio - who ran Argentina's Jesuit order during the dictatorship - told his biographer that he regularly hid people on church property during the dictatorship. But all this was done in secret, at a time when church leaders publicly endorsed the junta and urged Catholics to restore their "love for country" despite the terror in the streets.