Argentine President Cristina Fernandez says she has asked Pope Francis to help defuse the long-running dispute between Argentina and Britain over the Falkland Islands. Fernandez told journalists after she met with the new, Argentine-born pope Monday at the Vatican that she has asked for his intercession to "facilitate dialogue" over the islands, which Argentina claims and calls the Malvinas. Just Read more [...]

Argentina and Britain fought a 1982 war over the islands, which Argentina calls Malvinas. Earlier this month, the islanders voted overwhelmingly to remain a British Overseas Territory.There was no indication that Francis, now pope, would take up the request from Fernandez, with whom he has clashed for years over her populist policies on gay marriage and other hot-button issues like birth control that will soon confront Francis on a global scale as leader of the world’s 1.2-billion Catholics.Francis Read more [...]

Pope Francis has delivered his first Sunday prayer to a cheering, laughing crowd of about 300,000 people in St Peter's Square, amid hopes that his down-to-earth style will usher in a change in the Vatican.But while many in Rome were looking forward, accusers in his native Argentina continued to raise awkward questions about the past and reproduced a document suggesting the Jesuit may have betrayed two of his priests to the murderous military dictatorship in the 1970s.The sharply different perspectives Read more [...]

Another clergy member offered biblical justification for the military’s death flights, according to an account by one of the pilots anguished about dumping drugged prisoners out of aircraft and into the sea. As he starts his papacy, Francis, until this month Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, faces his own entanglement with the Dirty War, which unfolded from 1976 to 1983. As the leader of Argentina’s Jesuits for part of that time, he has repeatedly had to dispute Read more [...]

His death was announced by the government-run news agency Télam. His son José Martínez de Hoz said Mr. Martínez de Hoz had been ill and had probably died of a heart attack. Mr. Martínez de Hoz, a former law professor, was in charge of Argentina’s economy from 1976 to 1981. Initially, he was praised by international bankers, including David Rockefeller, for his free-market policies, designed to combat Argentina’s hyperinflation, but was condemned by Argentine businessmen for the Read more [...]

New Delhi: The Catholic Church in India expects more representation in Vatican during new Pope Francis' tenure considering the humble background of the first pontiff from Latin America.The Church is also likely to send an invitation to the new Pope, who was elected last week after the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, to visit India."Pope Francis, who comes from a humble background in Buenos Aires, might consider giving more emphasis on selecting Asians, Africans and Latin Americans into Read more [...]

London: Newly elected Pope Francis, known for serving the needy in Argentina, has explained for the first time why he chose the name Francis -- after 12-13th Century St Francis of Assisi, who represented "poverty and peace". "How I would like a poor Church for the poor!" said the 76-year-old Argentinian, the first pope from Latin America and the first non-European pontiff in nearly 1,300 years, in his first audience with journalists in Vatican yesterday. The former cardinal Read more [...]

16 March 2013 On a wet Wednesday night in Rome, when Pope Francis appeared from behind a blood-red velvet curtain and stepped on to the balcony of St Peter's Basilica for the first time, he seemed almost as dazed as the thousands gathered below that he had been chosen to lead the Catholic Church.'; document.write(s); return; } window.google_adnum Read more [...]

Vatican City: The honeymoon that Pope Francis has enjoyed since his remarkable election hit a bump on Friday, with the Vatican lashing out at what it called a defamatory and "anti-clerical left-wing" media campaign questioning his actions during Argentina's murderous military dictatorship.On Day 2 of the Francis pontificate, the Vatican denounced news reports in Argentina and beyond resurrecting allegations that the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio failed to openly confront the junta responsible for Read more [...]

Buenos Aires, Argentina • Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio was 39 years old when Argentina’s military junta seized power in March 1976. The seven years that followed were a time of darkness in his country. Union leaders, students, journalists and other left-wing activists were rounded up on the mere suspicion of "subversion." Many were tortured and raped, or tossed alive from military airplanes into the mouth of the Plata River. As many as 30,000 Argentines Read more [...]