Slandering Pope Francis?

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The Vatican's new and improved media response team {21.01.13, "Vaticangate"} was quick to denounce any and all criticisms of Father Jorge Bergoglio's relationship to the murderous Argentine junta as calumny eminating from anti-clerical sources. But Pope Francis' critics in Argentina are not easily cowed. Some documents from the era have resurfaced in Argentine media showing Jesuit leader Bergoglio took an active part in the case of two Jesuit priests singled out by the junta for reprisal. Father Francisco Jalics, suspected of contact with guerrillas, was denied renewal of his visa. The document notes that Father Bergoglio, made a "special recommendation" to not accept his request for visa renewal. Bergoglio has refuted the charge he effectively released the priests to the junta by denying them the protection of the Jesuit Order; Father Jalics, now retired in Germany, reconciled with Father Bergoglio years ago. The other priest imprisoned and tortured by the junta, Father Orlando Yorio, is dead but he told others he believed Bergoglio was partly responsible for what happened to him and Jalics. Bergoglio told biographers he interceded with authorities to protect the activist priests.

Perhaps the new Pope should be forgiven for his handling of two insubordinate radicals during a dangerous time in Argentine history. Father Superior Bergoglio certainly did not condemn neo-fasicists in power as did Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. Romero was shot dead on the steps of his cathedral by right-wing assassins in 1980. Unfortunately, despite its official teachings of social justice, the Church has a long and distasteful history of cooperation with fascists. Pope Pius XII's documented wartime collaboration comes immediately to US Person's mind. More recently, the now beatified Pope John Paul II rejected Latin American "liberation theology" as unorthodox and publicly admonished Father Ernesto Cardenal's support of the marxist Sandinista government of Nicaragua when he visited there in 1983. John Paul II was doctrinally conservative and elevated priests like Bergoglio who did not publicly protest political repression. Historically, Pope John Paul II was in the Church's mainstream opposition to "godless communism", but his opposition may have gone even further by allowing the Church to serve as cover for CIA operations against the Marxists in power in Nicaragua. Robert Perry, a former correspondent for Newsweek magazine writes about his experience of Church support for anti-Sandanista activities.

The Reagan administration was fixated on preventing the proliferation of leftist governments in its own backyard of Latin America. It had to keep its support of anti-Sandinista elements in Nicaragua clandestine if the administration was to enlist US public support for the Contra rebels. It was a classic "inside-out" operation: fomenting social upheaval internally while pressuring the Nicaraguan regime with international propaganda about its oppressive nature and conducting a debilitating economic embargo against the country. Reacting to violent demonstrations the Sandinista's closed the opposition newspaper La Prensa and the Catholic Church's radio station, both of which broadcast anti-Sandanista propaganda. US media roared its outrage at the suppression of press freedom. However, in private the US ambassador was required to testify to the open secret that the US funded and organized internal opposition in Nicaragua. Perry writes some of this support was funneled by the CIA through the Catholic Church and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo. Support apart from direct military aid to the Contra rebels amounted to $10 million a year.

Obando criticized the oppressive Samoza dictatorship in the 1970s but after Pope John Paul II publicly repudiated liberation theology and the notion of a "peoples' church" he jumped into the counterrevolutionary camp with both feet. He accused the Sandinista's of "godless communism". In 1985 Pope John Paul elevated him to cardinal. In 1986 Cardinal Obando traveled to the US and gave his support to renewing US aid for Contra rebels. Being on the CIA's payroll may have also played a role in his changed politics. Congressional oversight committees found out about CIA funds going to the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, so the funding was simply transfered to within the White House as part of Col. Oliver North's secret operation. Perry says North earmarked $100,000 for Obando's needs. Of course the funding was washed through cut-outs to prevent any of it being traced directly to him. Nevertheless the Cardinal is said to have expressed fear that his receipt of CIA money would be blown eventually.

In the end it was the enterprising journalist Perry who paid for writing about the Church connection. He was subjected to his own internal investigation at Newsweek and his relationship with senior editors soured. The Vatican refuses to allow any research into its relationship with the CIA or other intelligence agencies during the 70s and 80s when thousands of Latin Americans disappeared, were murdered, or tortured into submission by their own governments. Pope Francis is conducting a charm blitzkrieg at the moment, but questions about how the Church reconciles its official social doctrine with its actions or omissions under repressive political regimes remain unanswered.