ARGENTINA
McClatchy
By Daniel Politi, Vinod Sreeharsha and Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — The elevation Wednesday of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as the Roman Catholic Church’s 267th pope and the first from Latin America brought cheers across South America but also served as a reminder of the church’s role during the region’s dark days of dictatorship in the latter half of the 20th century.
Born in Buenos Aires in 1936, Bergoglio, 76, was 40 when Argentina’s military overthrow the government of Isabel Peron and instigated what became known as the “Dirty War,” during which as many as 30,000 people, most of them accused of being leftists, “disappeared.” Like many priests his age, he has been accused of not doing enough to protest the carnage.
In 2005, Argentine author Horacio Verbitzsky, whose books have detailed what he said was the church’s involvement in the Dirty War, accused Bergoglio of failing to protect two fellow Jesuits who’d opposed the military junta. The two Jesuits vanished and were presumed to have been killed by security forces. Bergoglio was never charged in subsequent years, nor has any hard evidence emerged of his involvement. But the charge has lingered largely because of Verbitzsky’s prominence in Argentina.
More recently, Bergoglio has been known for his confrontations with Argentina’s last two presidents, the husband and wife team of Nestor and Cristina Kirchner.
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