ARGENTINA
National Catholic Reporter
by John L. Allen Jr. | Apr. 12, 2013 All Things Catholic
I spent early April in Buenos Aires, where I tried to learn more about Pope Francis from those who know him best as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The idea was to gain insight into the man and his vision of the church, and I published some of what I found along the way.
However, I also had to look into some hard questions about the new pope’s record in Argentina. They include:
• Bergoglio’s response to two priests accused of sexual abuse, where critics have suggested he dropped the ball;
• why Argentina’s conference of Catholic bishops did not finish a set of sex abuse guidelines while he served as president;
• his relationship with Argentina’s military dictatorship as a Jesuit provincial during the 1970s;
• Bergoglio’s attitude toward liberation theology; and
• confusion over where he stood on the question of civil unions during a contentious national debate on gay marriage in 2009 and 2010.
The following are the best answers I can provide based on what I learned in Argentina.
Abuser priests
On March 18, The Washington Post moved a story from Argentina about Bergoglio’s record on the sexual abuse crisis that highlighted two cases: Fr. Julio César Grassi, convicted in 2009 of two counts of abuse and acquitted of several others, and Fr. Napoleon Sasso, convicted in 2007 of abusing five minor girls.
In general, the story suggested Bergoglio did not handle either case by the standards now accepted by the church in other parts of the world. It noted he did not meet victims, did not offer apologies or financial restitution, and did not take ecclesiastical action against the priests involved.
To begin with, here’s an important point not made in the Post story or in most subsequent commentary: Neither Grassi nor Sasso is a priest of the Buenos Aires archdiocese, and thus they were never under Bergoglio’s direct supervision. (Among other things, that means Bergoglio was never in a position to impose ecclesiastical punishment, which would have to be done by their own bishops.)
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.