Pope holds historic meeting with predecessor Benedict

[RainDog]

43. Bergoglio was opposed to liberation theology

but there's no evidence he actually collaborated with the death squads.

There is evidence that the archbishop of Argentina who served just before him did hide political prisoners from the Int'l Human Rights group that came to check on the activity of the navy unit that was tasked with slitting dissidents' bowels open and throwing them, live, from airplanes to drown and sink in the ocean. This repressive, right wing regime adopted the tactic of slitting bowels after so many dissidents began to wash up on shore - hard to claim someone is "disappeared" when their bodies are in your yard.

One priest, Christian von Wernich, did conspire with the junta and was convicted of torture and murder. Before he could be brought to justice, however, members of the church hierarchy in Argentina tried to hid him in Chile, to help him avoid justice.

He was brought back to Argentina and the church continued to offer mass to that priest. Yet this same organization has gone after liberals who refuse to force their personal beliefs on others who do not share it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/argentinas-disappeared-father-christian-the-priest-who-did-the-devils-work-396564.html

Outside the courthouse in La Plata, 50 miles south of Buenos Aires, late on Tuesday, the crowds were ready for what they were sure was coming. Finally, the word leaked that a verdict had been handed down – and it was the right one. They beat their drums, women undid white headscarves and raised them in the air, fireworks were lit and somewhere in the midst of the throng a human effigy was set alight.

It was an extraordinary explosion of emotion, replicated in cafes and homes across the land at the end of a televised trial that had lasted three months and gripped the entire population. But if there was joy, even relief in Argentina yesterday, its feelings remained far more complicated. This conviction was a moment of cleansing and resolution. But it also was a reminder of deep, incomprehensible pain.

The effigy of cardboard and cloth was in the likeness of the man convicted – in a dog collar of the Catholic Church. The Reverend Christian von Wernich, 69, a former police chaplain, was sentenced to life in prison for collaborating with the Buenos Aires police during the dark days of the country's "Dirty War", when, between 1976 and 1983, the military ran the country in a cruel and ruthless dictatorship.

Von Wernich, wearing a bullet-proof vest, who had compared himself to Jesus Christ in his testimony before a three-judge panel, was found guilty of involvement in seven murders, as well as 31 cases of torture and 42 kidnappings. He had participated, prosecutors said, in crimes that amounted to "genocide". Von Wernich told the court he had been doing "God's work".