As Jesuit provincial in Argentina, Pope Francis showed the abilities, prudence and shrewdness of a secret agent to save the lives of more than 100 people during the nation’s Dirty War in the 1970s. This is the assessment of Italian journalist Nello Scavo, who has just released a book recounting Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s efforts Read more
British government officials have dismissed a suggestion by Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner that Pope Francis could act as mediator in the two countries’ dispute over possession of the Falkland Islands. “The last thing we need is religion inserted in this,” said Michael Summers, a veteran Falklands legislator. Britain’s United Nations ambassador, Mark Lyall Grant, agreed. Read more
In June 1973 Juan Perón, the 77-year-old former Argentinian president, came home to Buenos Aires from exile in Franco’s Spain after an absence of 18 years. That same year Father Jorge Bergoglio of the Society of Jesus became the head of Argentina’s Jesuits at the age of 36. One day he would become pope. Perón Read more
Veteran Catholic correspondent John Allen has delved into the background of Pope Francis as a bishop and cardinal in Argentina and clarified his record on such issues as liberation theology, sex abuse guidelines, civil unions and the former military dictatorship. On the Pope’s record in Argentina, Allen says: = Despite Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio’s reputation as Read more
An Argentine pacifist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980 has come to the defence of Pope Francis’s actions between 1976 and 1983, when the military ruled the nation. Adolfo Perez Esquivel said Pope Francis preferred to carry out a “silent diplomacy” in helping victims, rather than leading a more public outcry during Argentina’s Read more
Much has been made of the impressions Pope Francis has created by his ordinary, every day activities: catching buses, using a telephone to make his own calls, not dressing in all the fine drapery usually worn by popes, treating people respectfully as he did the journalists, celebrating the Holy Thursday Mass in a Roman prison. Read more
Aljazeera Friday, discredited media reports that former Buenos Aires Cardinal, Jorge Mario Bergoglio played a major role, if any in Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship. Aljazera reports claims suggesting that Bergoglio was friendly with the military dictatorship seem less credible because Bergoglio was a young priest at the time of the Dirty War. Media have released a Read more
Perhaps the worst of all the unthinkable candidates, is how the international traditional Catholic blog Rorate Caeli describes the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis. The traditional blog, claims to have friends all around the world, including Argentina, where Marcelo Gonzalez of Panorama Catolico International, claims to give local in sight into the local archbishop. Republishing Gonzalez Read more
Pope Francis is being painted as a humble and simple man, but CNN reports, his past is tinged with controversy. Questions linger about Bergoglio’s actions during the nation’s dark days: the so-called Dirty War, when Argentina was ruled by dictators. Possibly the darkest period during Bergoglio’s rise to power took place when he served as Read more
Born in Argentina, Pope Francis is the first Latin American to lead the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the first Jesuit. “It seems my brother cardinals went almost to the end of the world [to choose a pope],” he told the crowd in St Peter’s Square in his first address, a joke which belied Read more