Last night within minutes of learning that the new leader of Roman Catholicism hailed from the Church hierarchy in Argentina I posted the following comment on my Facebook wall:
I wonder what his position was during the dirty war. The then cardinal was an absolute bastard and backed the government when it was murdering, raping, torturing and disappearing people.From my late teens I have had an interest in that period of Argentine history known as the rule of the Generals. At a conference on oral history in Ennis recently I recommended Horacio Verbitsky's book The Flight: Confessions of an Argentinian Dirty Warrior as one that provided rich insight into the times. Although if the reader wants a more overarching and thorough account of the era, Guerrillas and Generals: The Dirty War in Argentina is hard to go past. It is certainly one of my favourite works of non-fiction read within the past decade.
Horacio Verbitsky has been one of the biggest critics of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Reportedly in his book, The Silence: from Paulo VI to Bergoglio, the secret links between the Church and the Navy Mechanics School, which unlike The Flight is not available in English, he claims that the new pontiff when “Provincial” of Argentina for the Society of Jesus, was complicit in the activities of the regime: 'It is terrible to see how he is rewarded.'
Although the 'highest ranking Jesuit in Argentina during the military dictatorship led by General Jorge Videla', Bergoglio seems not to have challenged the military juanta. And Videla would later claim in an interview that 'he had received the blessing of the country’s top clergymen for the actions of his regime.'
While Verbitsky is a serious journalist and human rights advocate he was at one time a member of the Montenero guerrillas, many of whose members suffered appalling violence at the hands of the Videla regime.
Whether his association with the guerillas has given his observations an ideological hue will always be a matter of debate and his detractors will certainly seek to use it to smear him. Perhaps less easier to dismiss through the usual recourse to the slander rebuttal is the very dark shadow cast by legal proceedings:
In 2010, Bergoglio was questioned as a witness by judges probing the arrest and torture of two young Jesuits, Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were taken to the notorious Naval School of Mechanics in March 1976. ESMA was known as a torture center during the so-called Dirty War, in which government agents targeted suspected left-wing activists, tens of thousands of whom were "disappeared." Yorio and Jalics were freed alive after five months. Bergoglio was alleged to have betrayed the young missionaries to the regime because they had become opposition sympathizers and he wanted to preserve the Jesuits' political neutrality.He was also questioned in two more investigations into alleged regime crimes, but no charges were brought and he denied any wrongdoing.
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| Bergoglio and Videla |
Other human rights activists who have documented the atrocities of the regime have defended the new pope. Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Perez Esquivel, himself tortured by the military, argued:
Perhaps he didn’t have the courage of other priests, but he never collaborated with the dictatorship ... Bergoglio was no accomplice of the dictatorship. He can’t be accused of that.
The evidence thus far is that Bergoglio was at best silent. It was certainly a dangerous time for clergy who did speak out. They faced torture, murder and disappearance. And allegations in the Guardian two years ago that political prisoners were spirited away to Bergoglio's holiday home by the military to avoid Inter-American Human Rights Commission investigators are almost certainly without foundation. Against that, the Church has a history of lying and covering up for its princes, making it hard for the average observer to get to the truth.
1976-83 was a dark period in the history of a country already familiar with volatility and political violence. Argentine society was well into the throes of a guerrilla war where the guerrillas did not emerge with distinction for the manner in which they often treated those they kidnapped and held in people's prisons. But it was really when the military staged a coup in 1976 allowing it to take power that the country would have made an appropriate candidate for the title of Joseph Conrad’s work on Africa, The Heart of Darkness. The election of a new Catholic pontiff from a country with a dark history is already serving as an invitation to the Dirty War to yield what may be a dirty truth.
Interesting piece mackers. I realise you are not a fan of the church, I would not be a supporter myself, although I would not hold all members of the clergy as bad guys. Abuse of one's power is a henious act and must be condemned. As you state it is perhaps that many could and should have spoken out but sadly chose to remain silent; this acknowledgement leads me to queary the stance of socalled noble republicans who for perhaps the same reason as the current pope remained silent while their comrades, many of whome where considered virtious republicans, committed awful acts of abuse upon the very people they would have claimed to be protecting. They dissappered people many for nomore than youthful misdemeanours eg the two teens who robbed the old Clubhouse bar on the glen road, a crime the did commmit but who can justify their punishment or the actions of those who sanctioned it, nevermind remain silent. Then we have the young women and men sexually abused by PIRA members - this being not a one off crime rather a proliferation of abuses over a sustained period of time and people, not to mention the many people tortured by the PIRA and the debacle of Scap and John Joe Magee. Its evident many people knew of these abuses at the time yet i would guess that through fear failed to speak out, or perhaps IRA men never wanted to "tout" on one of their own who as they may have seen it, had a few too many drinks one nite and decided to rape a young girl and it was not rape rather, bad sexual etiquette. How about those nobel heros of teh people who would not think twice about beating a person to a bloody pulp for daring to question their authority or socalled republican ideals in a drinking establisment.
ReplyDeleteI am aware that you have spoke out about these abuses and i commend you on that, but what i would like to ask is this - Did u ever question your leaders and fellow comrades about these abuses or IRA actions when you where active in the PIRA? did you ever say in the 1980s "what the hell is going on here fellas, killing teenagers and dissappering them is wrong" and if you did not why not ? If you did speak out in the 1980s I would like to know what reception you got? I take it that before your split from the movment you where at one time a respected member of that movement. perhaps it was that in the 70s, 80s and early 1990s you where afraid of elucidity yourself as perhaps was the current pope.
Thanks for the research & info anthony.. The words Jesuit and complicit summed it all up… How depressing but how predictable . I doubt he will ever be tried for his crimes Anyway the deluded masses will negate it ever happening. And that is Catholicism for ya All smoke, mirrors and BS but also incredibly evil, powerful entity. Hello John McGirr How does the new pope grab ya? lol
ReplyDeleteThe river of filth flows on unabated. Zionists Jesuits Masons Join the dots… The all morph into one. A new version of Pope is in the making in the guise of Assisi Nothing like projecting the gentle loving man of all creatures great and small. What a travesty it all is and how sad mind control is
For anyone interested some excerpts of the Jesuit Oath If you want to see it in full it is on quite a few websites. There are parallels to Masonic oath in it (no surprise of cse) This source http://www.remnantofgod.org/jes-oth.htm#oath
‘I furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportunity present, make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly, against
all heretics, Protestants and Liberals, as I am directed to do, to extirpate and exterminate them from the face of the whole earth;
and that I will spare neither age, sex or condition; and that I will hang, waste, boil, flay, strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs and wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the walls, in order to annihilate forever their execrable race.
That when the same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisoned cup, the strangulating cord, the steel of the poniard or the leaden bullet, regardless of the honor, rank, dignity, or authority of the person or persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or private,
as I at any time may be directed so to do by any agent of the Pope or Superior of the Brotherhood of the Holy Faith, of the Society of Jesus.’
‘I will subscribe my name written in my own blood, in testimony thereof; and should I prove false or weaken in my determination, may my brethren and fellow soldiers of the Militia of the Pope cut off my hands and my feet, and my throat from ear to ear, my belly opened and sulphur burned therein, with all the punishment that can be inflicted upon me on earth and my soul be tortured by demons in an eternal hell forever’
Anthony this post says to me no matter where on this planet you turn over a stone the the grubs one finds are exactly the same in nature,the catholic church especially the hiearchy here was complicit by their words and deeds in trying to suppress the support for the IRA in the Tan war with excommunication being the norm,they played on peoples deeply held religious beliefs as as weapon in favour of their brit masters, once the republic was established the same hiearchy was not slow in sliding snake like into the new camp and gaining a position of power and privilege that they neither earned or deserved, we find that the exact same tactics were used by the church here during the last episode of our bloody past, my own wife like others being named from the pulpit by a cleric who it seems cared less for her safety or freedom than that of a cosy relationship with the "authorities" yet once again those vociferous detractors of the PRM were not a bit slow in ditching their objections to this movement when it became apparent that the "godless"men and women of the PRM were on the cusp of getting their hands on the reins of power and privilege,proving again that a snake may shed its skin but its still remains a snake,this seems to be the worldwide held opinion of this organisation survive at any cost and fuck the rest being their operational motto.I,m sure that in an organisation like the catholic church one doesnt get to become pope by prayers,I,d suggest that the big boys in the church like their counterparts in q$£ and dup would not like their history to deeply scrutinised.
ReplyDeleteI don't read complicity in this article, deliberate detachment yes, but not complicitly....Very much like the Church in Ireland to a degree. As for the two Jesuits reportedly betrayed by Our Fra…..very sceptical of that claim. In fact, I would go as far as to state that I’m not convinced by that little anecdote at all…to send two members of your precious Order to be violently interrogated and to potentially, their deaths for nothing more than insubordination is hard to believe – implies not only was he conspiring to commit murder but supporting it? Why were they let live? Was it not more of a shot across the bows at the Church to remind it to stop meddling in State affairs????? The photo helps imply an air of condoning to the Regimes activities and Regimes can claim support from many quarters and without that physical support existing……. but was there no photographs of Our Fra with non-regime people available?
ReplyDeleteI’ll wait and see what lies ahead.
The interview, conducted in 2010, was only published on Sunday, hours before Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected Pope in Rome.
ReplyDeleteWhom do we believe"
interview with Argentina’s former military dictator Jorge Videla.
St. Malachy predicted Pope Benedict’s successor will be LAST POPE, AFTER FRANCIS 1st, the final will be The prediction in full is "In the final persecution of the Holy Roman Church THERE WILL REIGN PETER THE ROMAN, who will feed his flock amid many tribulations, after which the seven-hilled city will be destroyed and the dreadful Judge will judge the people. The End.”
ReplyDeleteffs, so much for the Glory be to father , "WORLD WITHOUT END" Amen!
Prayers, made by Man, for the selling of Books.
That's it then , Anarchy Now.
Pope Benedict’s successor will be last pope
I feel the photo of Bergoglio and Videla is very revealing, as it demonstrates what has been said about him, he is a man who knows how to position himself amongst powerful people. Both men look comfortable in the others company.
ReplyDeleteHis refusal to speak out publicly in Argentina was not a matter of courage. Bergoglio is a man who deals with power as an equal, he would have had little to fear physically, although his ever upward rise may have stalled.
Military Caudillo's rarely if ever whack bishops or any senior clerics with an inside track to the Vatican, not without a green light that is. (Romero with a totally different situation)
Like Franco before them in Spain, in all probability the junta would have informed the church hierarchy in Argentina about the coup before hand. (the new Pope was part of that Catholic hierarchy.)
I would bet my pension the reason he failed to speak out was because he new the church was complicit in the military take over.
But hey none of this matters, the pope loves the poor, shows great humility, lives frugally.
Watching the red caps going through the motions I wondered if that number of pedos and cover it ups, have ever before been in the same room.
Emmett:
ReplyDeleteThere was a lot I detested, same little click, thought they were every woman's dream, thought they could do what ever they wanted, thought they were hard, but the laugh is, get one of them on there own and offer to have a go, they renege , but then the knock at the door, The rule of thumb was, See Nothing,Hear Nothing, Know Nothing, and, to me it's the very same to this very day, eyes closed,ears closed, mouth closed. I know it sounds hard to fathom, but its the best way. I never agreed with most of it, but if you weren't at the top , like in the know, you weren't even looked at.
Emmett,
ReplyDeleteThanks for a considered response.
I would not hold all members of the clergy as bad guys.
Agreed. Although the higher up the food chain the less that would seem to be a useful guide.
Abuse of one's power is a heinous act and must be condemned.
I guess where there is power there is abuse. It is heinous in my view when the harm done is really harmful. Much power abuse is petty. There is a gradient. And if ‘heinous’ is used to describe all abuse a very useful term diminishes in value.
After reading your comment I revisited the piece to see if it sounded critical of Bergoglio for being silent. It didn’t read that way to me nor was it the prime intent. Niall read it right when he read no complicity into it.
We don’t really know for sure why the current pope remained silent. I outlined the dangers for those who did speak out – murder, torture, disappeared. And he claims to have done things which entailed risk – and for which there is no reason to doubt his account – to save the lives of regime opponents. I do think Organised Rage made a lot of sense when he speculated on the motives. Was it genuine fear for which I would be reluctant to judge him? Or was it power positioning? His post junta silence is probably key to understanding his motives. At a time when the grounds for fear had been substantially removed he still seems to have remained silent, indicting neither the regime nor his own institution. There was a muted church apology in 2010 under his leadership and he sought to avoid negating his silence when asked to give testimony. When he eventually did it was viewed as ‘evasive.’ So, while I did not attribute motives to him in the article I find it hard to disagree with Organised Rage.
I think in these matters we try to separate choice from necessity. The Church certainly had choices. It made a choice in Chile and arguably curbed the Pinochet dictatorship’s penchant for repression. Bergoglio seems to have been less the product of necessity. There was a situational logic for sure but within it there were choices which he made and which it is hard to argue were prompted by fear.
Videla currently offering commentary might prove crucial in how the matter comes to be interpreted. He has clearly implicated the Church.
Emmet,
ReplyDeleteYour issue with republicans is valid. However you claim that ‘many’ were disappeared for youthful misdemeanours. There were certainly two too many but who else makes up this many? There is no justification for their deaths or disappearances.
There was never any discussion in the jail that I recall about the two disappeared Andersonstown men. It happened in May 78 but when did it make the news? I can’t recall it. There was a kidnap in Twinbrook the month before and a subsequent disappearance but it was well publicised.
You refer to a ‘proliferation’ of sexual abuse. But do you use ‘proliferation’ in the sense that you use ‘many’? Having talked to numerous republicans over the years in the course of which I picked up many critical things it seems strange that this never featured. I never once knew of active volunteers having raped any woman. And Idealt with many complaints. Where it happened it would have been very easy to speak out against. In recent years I have talked to a couple of women who have described such an ordeal. If it is prolific then I would like to know about it and it should be addressed.
As for men being sexually abused, I have heard of a very small number of cases. And if people don’t know it is happening then they can hardly speak out against it. For those that did know and did nothing then they have quite a bit of explaining to do.
People like me were not known in the prison for staying silent with matters we found fault with. We voiced our opposition to what we were opposed to. Some people agreed with us and others didn’t. It won us no popularity awards further up the food chain. And at times there were attempts to silence us. But we never held back because of fear. I think there was more reason to be fearful once we left the ranks. That’s when the ante was upped. It still did not silence us.
But there was also much we approved of then that we would not approve today. And that makes us complicit in the activities of the IRA including those for which there is barely mitigation let alone justification. We might not like that complicity but it is a fact which we can’t evade and for which many will judge us harshly. But we can hardly be expected to be critical of the things we at the same time approve.
I think one major difference between the stance of republicans and the Argentine Church was that republicans openly challenged state repression and narratives, often losing their lives in doing so.
Had Bergoglio taken the position Bobby Sands or Kevin Lynch who lost their lives because they made choices to oppose regimes they considered malign, he might have made a difference.
Mary,
ReplyDeleteI didn’t argue in the piece that he had actually committed any crimes. Watching how the debate has evolved around his appointment as pope, I think there is quite a bit more that needs to come out before it is settled. Already the Vatican is messing things up by adopting the same stance that it did in relation to paedophile trafficking and child abuse: it is all a left wing and journalistic plot.
My own view is that while he was part of an institution that was complicit there is nothing to persuade me that he was personally complicit in the sense of endorsing or approving the regime. The truly guilty here are the military under Videla and those who aided them including the Church as an institution. But we know for certain that the situation is going to take on new legs because researchers will dig and dig at it and I wonder how the pope’s position can improve. I guess by now any good that he did will be known about, which means that what will be uncovered can only be negative for him.
I think it also gives the Argentine military figures from the day a powerful weapon. Given that Videla has publicly taken responsibility for his role and made no apology he is in a position to generate a belief in his account, whatever it may be, in a way that the pope may not be. Overall, I don’t think it is something the pope or Church can emerge well from. I feel it further diminishes an already weak moral authority.
Thanks for the response Mackers. You state -
ReplyDelete"You refer to a ‘proliferation’ of sexual abuse. But do you use ‘proliferation’ in the sense that you use ‘many’? Having talked to numerous republicans over the years in the course of which I picked up many critical things it seems strange that this never featured. I never once knew of active volunteers having raped any woman. And Idealt with many complaints. Where it happened it would have been very easy to speak out against. In recent years I have talked to a couple of women who have described such an ordeal. If it is prolific then I would like to know about it and it should be addressed"
Proliferation I use as in the meaning of the term.
Given the widespread epidemic of physical mental and sexual abuse that forms a dark underbelly of Irish society I have no doubt that many more unreported cases will surface once the abused feel they can speak out without fear of becoming marginalised. I guess it could unfold like the saville case whereby many socalled civil people suspected and many others knew - eg the heads of the BBC - what saville and others where at yet failed to speak out for indoing so a bad stink may descend on "thier" little elite gang. If The PIRA fail to keep a lid on it - which it has been sugested by some of those abused this is exactly what has happend - the levee will break; not only exposing the level of abuse within the movement but also embarrassing past and present members of that movement, for simillar to the church your old movments reputation will be stained forever. For many republicans this would be hard to take thus these stains are easily washed away."There is no comming to consciousness without pain" Jung may have added to the end of that "perhaps better exprovies if you never came at all"
By romancing bygone times and failed ideals They can assuage the onset of the truth/the bigger picture unfolding before their loyal eyes. Many excombatants seek refuge in such narratives, lambasting enemies and iconising the fallen - we see this with many organisations from the british army to the church - brothers in arms and all that old crap.
Moreover, it has been suggestd that the PIRA moved abusers on letting them ply their dirty little trade on some other unsuspecting individuals' poor child. In the late 1990s The IRA exiled a republican who helped run one of their social clubs in westbelfast after he had been accused of abusing children in the lenadoon area. Many people who frequent that club and live in that area know this - its an open secret. Some may say that the movement acted justly by forcing him to leave the island, however exiling then remaining silent is not they way to deal with pedophiles.
Aside from sexual abuse how about the case of Andrew kearney, a father, who after a punishment attack by the PIRA bled to death in a lift in newlodge flats - his abusers having jammed the doors so he could not get help. And this mans crime? well apparently he had the audacity to beat a republican "made man" in a bar brawl. The fact is many people where and are afraid to speak out, they know only to well that in doing so, within working class nationalist societies, they most probally will become marginalized.
Hold a mirror to this aspect of the republican narrative mackers and what do you see ? you see the catholic church of old oppressing the people, ironically they nolonger hold the monopoly on abuse, for like fuel smugglers the IRA are tenaciously compettive.
Was the recently retired pontif not supposed to have been in the Hitler youth? Can't think anything would be an obstacle after that.
ReplyDeleteLatin America was a nasty place generally as a result of yankie interfearance. Parts of it still are pretty ugly.
Recon the leader of North Korea would have been a good choice, he enjoys a similarly blind following.
larry you cannot compare North Korea to Rome,I mean one rules through fear while the other fears the ruler...
ReplyDeleteEmmett,
ReplyDeleteYou might be right about floodgates opening but we have now so many people who have broken ranks and yet we don’t have this knowledge floating to the surface. But I don’t follow it like I once did so maybe it is emerging.
Yet to use ‘proliferation’ to describe what has not yet been reported (I presume you mean openly discussed rather than being reported to the authorities) brought out doesn’t seem to stand up. The IRA might have wanted to keep a lid on it but with so many having abandoned ship that wouldn’t be easy. During The Blanket website we would have got a range of issues that people wanted raised but nothing like that.
Trafficking of child molestors - again how much do we know? The well publicised case of a man the SF leader believed to be a rapist suggests there was a wilingness to traffic and cover up but how widespread was it? To the extent that it was in place, great or small, there should be no hiding place for it.
Andy Kearney was one of those cases that have left the type of stain you talk about. But it seems to me that there is a much greater willingness to speak out now than back in the day. A number of people have said to me in recent years that the fear factor is no longer as strong. I know marginalisation and isolation worked. I saw it at play and nowhere more so than at funerals when the glare was palpable, friends moving to getting out of the way rather than be seen talking. Now, I am told the ostracisers are themselves facing what I used to face at funerals.
I doubt we need to be told about the oppressive nature of the Provos. It has been well flagged up at this end.
Marty,
ReplyDelete' one rules by fear while the other fears the ruler! Does that not mean exactly the same thing? Which means Larry is right there is a similarity.
Fionnuala
ReplyDeletePossibly just different versions of the same total faith.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteRuled by fear or fearing a type of rule amounts to the same thing. I'm not sure if the Church or religion has that same fear over factor that they had in the past.
Read an interesting piece recently about theft in a work canteen. Above the area where the money was stored the employers placed a photo of a woman and the thieving greatly reduced. Then they put up a picture of Jesus and it stopped. One explanation that psychologists offered was ,in the first instance we will all behave differently if we feel we are being watched. In the second instance when the picture of God went up, psychologists said deep seated in most of us is the fear of the almighty observing what we do!
Having said that I think the fear that they once instilled has went greatly of the boil. Might be a good idea to keep a Holy picture beside your wallet though .
Fionnuala
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. I'd hazzard a guess the factory was in a poor 3rd world country. We westerners are a bit more cynical and dismissive. Just a suspicion.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteDon't think they said where it was. What I found amazing was how the subconscious apparently acted on something that may have been planted in childhood.
I don't think poor people taking money is theft. Better to be suspicious than trusting sometimes, especially in our society where the plastic people tend to get a better shout than the genuine. Thought it was an interesting experiment all the same .
Nuala in the context of that statement "one rules by fear" means the rule of a pope and his organisation through fear of a diety and its hells damnation.the other"fears the ruler" means simply that the population of N Korea live in fear of their ruler Kim Jung -un,but hey you take whatever way you like.
ReplyDeleteMarty,
ReplyDeleteIt is not a case of taking what I like, both statements mean the same thing? If someone rules by fear it does not matter whether it is 'hells damnation' or 'fear or diety' the desired result only comes about when the people then fear the ruler.
So again, there is no other way it can be taken!