ARGENTINA
Twinsburg Bulletin
MICHAEL WARREN Associated Press Published: March 14, 2013
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — It’s beyond dispute that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, like most other Argentines, failed to openly confront the 1976-1983 military junta as it kidnapped and killed thousands of people in a “dirty war” to eliminate leftist opponents.
But human rights activists differ on how much responsibility Pope Francis personally deserves for the Argentine church’s dark history of supporting the murderous dictatorship.
The new pope’s authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, argues that this was a failure of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and that it’s unfair to label Bergoglio, then a thirtysomething leader of Argentina’s Jesuits, with the collective guilt that many Argentines of his generation still wrestle with.
“In some way many of us Argentines ended up being accomplices,” at a time when anyone who spoke out could be targeted, Rubin recalled in an interview with The Associated Press just before the papal conclave.
Some leading Argentine human rights activists agree that Bergoglio, now 76, doesn’t deserve to be lumped together with other church figures who were closely aligned with the dictatorship.
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