Pope Francis orders Vatican to open files on Argentina dictatorship

[Judi Lynn]

6. Some of the clergy in Argentina have a horrendous part they played during the Dirty War.

From previous articles:

Argentine Church Faces ‘Dirty War’ Past


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A member of Mothers of May Plaza, a group that has pushed for answers about the dirty war. They wore scarves with
names of the disappeared at the trial of the Rev. Christian von Wernich.

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: September 17, 2007
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LA PLATA, Argentina, Sept. 10 — A simple wooden cross hanging from his neck, the Rev. Rubén Capitanio sat before a microphone on Monday and did what few Argentine priests before him had dared to do: condemn the Roman Catholic Church for its complicity in the atrocities committed during Argentina’s “dirty war.”


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Juan Mabromata/A.F.P.
— Getty Images

Father von Wernich is accused of
conspiring with the military during
Argentina’s dirty war.
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Father von Wernich is accused of conspiring with the military during Argentina’s dirty war.
“The attitude of the church was scandalously close to the dictatorship” that killed more than 15,000 Argentines and tortured tens of thousands more, the priest told a panel of three judges here, “to such an extent that I would say it was of a sinful degree.” The panel is deciding the fate of the Rev. Christian von Wernich, a priest accused of conspiring with the military who has become for many a powerful symbol of the church’s role.

Some three months of often chilling testimony in the trial illustrated how closely some Argentine priests worked with military leaders during the dirty war. Witnesses spoke about how Father von Wernich was present at torture sessions in clandestine detention centers. They said he extracted confessions to help the military root out perceived enemies, while at the same time offering comforting words and hope to family members searching for loved ones who had been kidnapped by the government.

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Hernán Brienza, a journalist who helped find the priest in Chile and wrote a book about the case, said he believed that about 30 other Argentine priests, some already dead, could have been brought up on human rights charges for their involvement in torture.

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In Argentina, however, there was a much tighter relationship between the clergy and the military than existed in Chile or Brazil. “Patriotism came to be associated with Catholicism,” said Kenneth P. Serbin, a history professor at the University of San Diego who has written about the Roman Catholic Church in South America. “So it was almost natural for the Argentine clergy to come to the defense of the authoritarian regime.”

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/world/americas/17church.html?_r=0

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