Argentina: Francis’ biggest critic finds himself in the eye of the storm

Vatican Insider
November 22, 2014

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/world-news/detail/articolo/argentina-verbitsky-pagina12-estela-de-carlotto-dictatorship-37680/

andrés beltramo Álvarez
vatican city

He had been Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s biggest critic for years. Today he finds himself in the eye of the storm, so to speak. His books and articles drove home the theory about the Pope’s incriminating past, in other words his complicity in Argentina’s last military dictatorship. But the most renowned human rights activists gave him the cold shoulder. The disappearance of the most critical notes ever written about Bergoglio from the digital archive of Argentinian newspaper Página/12, has sparked a new debate regarding the credibility of Horacio Verbitsky. 

The discovery came to light on the web earlier this week and quickly caught the press’s attention. At least eight articles Verbitsky wrote in 2005 and 2010 have vanished from the website of Argentina’s oldest left-wing newspaper. Some media speculated that it was done in the spirit of the new era of “reconciliation” between Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government and the Argentinian Pope.

The journalist called this version of the facts “malicious nonsense” (in the 19/11/14 issue of Argentinian newspaper Clarín) and issued a statement in which he claimed that he himself had asked for access to the reports to be blocked because he didn’t want to give pre-chewed information to the cloud of European journalists that moved to Buenos Aires to prepare instant books on the figure.” He also stated that his investigations are still underway and that he does not like giving his work away for free.

The explanation does not say whether the request Página/12 presented to Google for the journalist’s reports to be blocked was made in the weeks following Bergoglio’s election as Pope or in recent months. But it is interesting, nevertheless, that the episode emerged just days after the President of Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo), Estela de Carlotto, publicly admitted she had made a mistake about the role Bergoglio had played during the days of the dictatorship (1976-1983).

“We are building Argentina’s history, we do not possess the truth, we may make mistakes in our judgements of people’s actions because we are unravelling history,” she said at a press conference in Rome on 6 November, the day after she and her family, along with her long-lost son, were received in the Vatican.

In a private conversation with the Pope, she apologised to him for her reaction back in March 2013, when she told the press that Francis was “part of the Church that darkened the history of our country,” suggesting his complicity with the military regime. She clarified that her statement were based on “malicious claims” and “misinformation”.

“That is all in the past now, we are here on a new journey,” Francis replied. But De Crlotto went further. Not only did she recognise the “true history” of the current leader of the Catholic Church, a man who helped save people’s lives during the dictatorship. She also warned: “Anyone who continues to speak ill (of him, Ed.) is lying, this is why it is human to rectify one’s mistakes.”

Although she did not refer specifically to Verbitsky at any point, the President of Abuelas de Plaza de mayo, was undoubtedly speaking about him when she spoke of “malicious claims”. This came as a big blow to the President of the Centre of Legal and Social Studies who had already been preceded by others. Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel strongly defended Bergoglio. As did many other social activists.

Perhaps this is why, in a conversation he had with Italian journalist Nello Scavo, he corrected himself. “I never wrote or thought that Bergoglio had been a voluntary accomplice of the dictatorship. I believe that the way he acted in the case of the two priests Yorio and Jalics put them in a great deal of danger,” he said in his conversation with the writer, published in his latest book (“I sommersi e i salvati di Bergoglio”, Piemme editions, 2014).

But in “El Silencio. De Paulo VI a Bergoglio” (Sudamericana, 2006), Verbitsky gave a voice to a number of people who accuse the Pope not only of having close links to the dictatorship. The focus of his accusations is the abduction of the abovementioned priests who left the Society of Jesus when the Pope was a superior. They were abducted for a period of five months.

“Yorio believes that Bergoglio or someone very close to him was present during the interrogations. The Vatican saved Yorio’s skin. Bergoglio was a deliverer and many members of the Society of Jesus had to go into exile,” page 61 reads, according to a statement from an anonymous source.

In addition to giving credit to other statements like this, teh journalist included other statements as well, which weakened the testimony of Alicia Oliveira, a qualified source. Oliveira was an Argentinian judge who defended political prisoners and received special support from the Jesuit superior in 1976. Before she died, she proved that Pope Francishad never colalborated with Argentina’s military.

She was hard in the comments she made about Verbitsky, as a fragment from one of her numerous interviews (El Tribuno, 23/03/2013) shows. “In my opinion, what Verbitsly says is slanderous. I was very hurt by what he said. Jorge Bergoglio is not a saint, he is a good erson. A good man who could never –by nature of his personality – be in favour of the dictatorship. I don’t know how many people Verbitsky saved  during the dictatorship but I know how many Bergoglio saved.”