- Commentary
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By
Carlos Gamerro
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Jorge Mario Bergoglio pays his bill at the Casa del Clero residence after being named Pope Francis on March 14, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican.
Like many people in Argentina, I received the election of the new pope with mixed feelings. On the one hand there is a certain pride in having a fellow-countryman being chosen for such a high seat – though the prevailing mood in the streets this week was not one of rejoicing but of incredulity, as if what we saw on the TV screens was some sort of practical joke the rest of the world was pulling on us (we tend to be a nation of skeptics). It is also true that the election of the first Latin-American pope is a good sign.
As bishop (1992), archbishop (1998), and cardinal (2001), Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) has made many gestures of humility and proximity towards the poor, and has been active in promoting pastoral presence in the slums. But his views on abortion, celibacy and same-sex marriage, which in 2010 became legal in Argentina in spite of his ardent campaigning against it, are as orthodox as any in the Church hierarchy could wish, even if he seems to hold a more tolerant view of the use of contraceptives in the prevention of disease.
Bergoglio was the head of the Jesuit Order during the last military dictatorship of Argentina. The dictatorship was responsible during the so-called “Dirty War” for kidnapping and killing as many as 30,000 people suspected of working against the state (the captured and murdered were called desparecidos or “disappeared ones”) and the illegal captivity and torture of many thousands more, according to human-rights groups and historians.
Two of the desparecidos, the Jesuit priests Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who conducted missionary work in the slums of Buenos Aires, were kidnapped by the Navy in May 1976 and released five months later. Yorio, who died in 2000, according to numerous reports claimed that Bergoglio had demanded they put an end to their work in the slums and, upon their refusal, removed his protection and that removal allowed the dictatorship to greenlight the death squads.
The Vatican Press Office didn’t respond to a request for a comment for this article. But today, Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi blasted what he called a “defamatory” and “anti-clerical left-wing” campaign to discredit Pope Francis and said no credible accusation against him had ever proven to be true.
According to the Associated Press, Bergoglio told a biographer in 2010 that during the dictatorship he regularly hid people on church property, and that he took behind-the-scenes measures to save Yorio and Jalics.
Jalics, who had for years refused to discuss the matter, on Friday issued a statement carried in the Associated Press saying he had spoken with Bergoglio years later, and that together the two had celebrated Mass together and hugged. “I am reconciled to the events and consider the matter to be closed,” Jalics said.
In any case, it is still a fact that Bergoglio was not one of the few priests who publicly raised a voice against the atrocities of the dictatorship. It is also true that many of those who did raise their voices paid for it with their lives: at least nineteen priests reportedly were murdered by the military, including two bishops, Enrique Angelelli and Carlos Ponce de León. Those interested in these matters can consult Horacio Verbitsky’s essential study on the role of the Catholic Church during the last Argentine dictatorship, “El silencio” (The Silence).
In August 1976, a few months after the dictatorship had begun its systematic campaign of exterminating its opponents, a group of priests sent a letter to the Argentine Episcopal Conference, demanding a public pronunciation on what many knew was happening but few dared talk about. The reply of the bishops can be summed up in these words: “We are convinced there is a tempus loquendi and a tempus tacendi (a time to speak out, a time to shut up) and we adjust our behavior to what we think best for our congregation.”
In Argentina many of us are still waiting for the Catholic Church to decide that the tempus loquendi has arrived. Perhaps when they do, we’ll be able to rejoice wholeheartedly in the election of an Argentine pope.
Argentinian author Carlos Gamerro is author of An Open Secret and The Islands.