ARGENTINA
The Guardian (UK)
Lizzy Davies in Rome and Jonathan Watts in Buenos Aires
The Guardian, Sunday 17 March 2013
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 have dogged the early days of the new leader of the Catholic church, who will be officially installed at an inaugural mass on Tuesday.
His capacity to rouse affection and optimism were in evidence as he mixed cheery greetings with humour and anecdotes at his inaugural Angelus.
Speaking in Italian rather than Latin, he joked with the crowd and ended by saying: “Have a good Sunday and a good lunch!” Pilgrims, many from Latin America, roared their approval. …
However, his critics in Argentina were unwilling to move on so quickly. The pope continues to be haunted by allegations dating back to the dictatorship era, when the Catholic church colluded with the generals to quell what they saw as a Marxist threat.
The Argentinian newspaper Pagina 12 republished old documents on Sunday that suggest Jorge Bergoglio, as the pope was known until last week, was in contact with the military authorities about the insubordination of two of his priests and rumours that they had contact with leftwing guerrilla groups.
Father Orlando Yorio and Father Francisco Jalics were tortured and kept in a concentration camp for nearly six months in 1976, after they refused Bergoglio’s order to leave the slum where they were working. In that era, any priest who focused on the poor districts was under suspicion of collaborating with Marxist groups.
A foreign ministry memo from 1979 seems to suggest Bergoglio had passed on suspicions to the authorities, and connived behind the backs of the priests.
The typed note contains bullet points that explain why Jalics was denied a passport renewal application. He had fled to Germany following his release, and asked Bergoglio’s help to get a travel document.
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