Francis, the Jesuits and the Dirty War

[struggle4progress]

Thomas Reese | Mar. 17, 2013

... There were also disagreements about how to respond to the military junta in Argentina. As provincial, Father Bergoglio was responsible for the safety of his men. He feared that Orlando Yorio, S.J., and Franz Jalics, S.J., were at risk and wanted to pull them out of their ministry. They, naturally, did not want to leave their work with the poor.

Yorio and Jalics were arrested when a former lay colleague, who had joined the rebels and then been arrested, gave up their names under torture as people he had worked with in the past. This was normal practice for the military. The junta did not get information from Bergoglio. Contrary to rumor, he did not throw them out of the society and therefore remove them from the protection of the Society of Jesus. They were Jesuits when they were arrested. Yorio later left the Society but Jalics is still a Jesuit today, living in a Jesuit retreat house in Germany.

The Jesuit historian Father Jeff Klaiber interviewed Juan Luis Moyano, S.J., who had also been imprisoned and deported by the military. Moyano told Klaiber that Bergoglio did go to bat for imprisoned Jesuits. There are disagreements over whether he did as much as he should have for them, but such debates always occur in these circumstances.

Adolfo Esquivel, the Argentine who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1980, says Bergoglio was not involved with the military and did try to help the two Jesuits. He himself was imprisoned by the military and his son is married to Mercedes Moyano, the sister of Juan Luis Moyano ...

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/francis-jesuits-and-dirty-war

[goldent]

1. I think the concluding statement of that article was a good summary

Those who have not lived under a dictatorship should not be quick to judge those who have, whether the dictatorship was in ancient Rome, Latin America, Africa, Nazi Germany, Communist Eastern Europe, or today’s China. We should revere martyrs, but not demand every Christian be one.

And I think Pope Francis' experiences having lived through this will serve him well as Pope.

[okasha]

2. I think this finally explains

what was meant by «withdrawing protection.» I seriously doubt that a Jesuit Provincial can toss someone out of the Order. He's just not that high up the food chain.

Suggest you cross post this in Interfaith Group.

[patrice]

3. Imagine being in that kind of situation, like an inquisition, forgive the comparison, in which

anything you say or do can hurt, not only those who are already in danger, but almost any others related more or less directly around them besides. I bet it isn't just about danger to one's self.