ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Herald
Santiago Del Carril
Herald staff
After his death, many were quick to point out the that the former dictator Jorge Videla was taking many of his secrets to the grave, but one thing that hasn’t remained a mystery is the relationship that the leader had with the Catholic Church during his reign. From the very beginning of Videla’s rise to power, the dictator had developed a close friendship with the highest ranking leaders.
On the night before the declaration of the March 24, 1976 military coup, General Jorge Videla with Admiral Emilio Massera, had met with leaders of the Church hierarchy in their office and followed it up on the day of the coup d’état, with a long meeting with the military vicariate. When Archbishop Adolfo Tórtolo came out of the meeting he stated “the Church has its own specific mission.. there are circumstances in which it cannot refrain from participating even when it is a matter of problems related to the specific order of the state.”
As can be interpreted from the statements above, Videla’s led junta had a close alliance with the Church where they served as a confidants to the military in that period. Throughout the military dictatorship there were several incidents that highlighted the links between Videla and ecclesiastical authorities. This relationship was first documented in the late Human Rights activist and CELS founder Emilio Mignone’s book Witness to the Truth, which detailed the Catholic Church’s complicity with the military in this era.
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