Thursday, March 14, 2013 5:02:37 AM
Austere, humble Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Francis, has experience with scandal
Those who know him describe the Archbishop of Buenos Aires and
primate of Argentina as a shy, softly-spoken man who shuns high
society.
He was born December 17, 1936 to a rail worker who emigrated from
northern Italy and a housewife.
The new pontiff went to a state-run school and studied to become a
chemical technician.
When he graduated at 22, he joined the Jesuits and took a degree in
philosophy.
He followed this with theology studies and was ordained in 1969.
He studied in Chile, and years later studied in Germany.
Bergoglio's legacy as cardinal includes his efforts to repair the
reputation of a church that lost many followers by failing to
openly challenge Argentina's murderous 1976-83 dictatorship.
He also worked to recover the church's traditional political
influence in society, but his outspoken criticism of President
Cristina Kirchner couldn't stop her from imposing socially liberal
measures that are anathema to the church, from gay marriage and
adoption to free contraceptives for all.
"In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don't baptise
the children of single mothers because they weren't conceived in
the sanctity of marriage,"
Bergoglio told his priests.
"These are today's hypocrites.
Those who clericalise the Church.
Those who separate the people of God from salvation.
And this poor girl who, rather than returning the child to sender,
had the courage to carry it into the world, must
wander from parish to parish so that it's baptised!"
This sort of pastoral work, aimed at capturing more souls and
building the flock, is an essential skill for any religious
leader in the modern era, said Bergoglio's authorised biographer,
Sergio Rubin.
Bergoglio himself felt most comfortable taking a very low profile,
and his personal style has been the antithesis of Vatican splendor.
"It's a very curious thing: When bishops meet, he always wants to
sit in the back rows.
This sense of humility is very well seen in Rome," Rubin said
before the 2013 conclave to choose Benedict's successor.
Bergoglio's influence seemed to stop at the presidential palace door
after Nestor Kirchner and then his wife, Cristina Fernandez, took
over the Argentina's government.
His church had no say when the Argentine Supreme Court expanded
access to legal abortions in rape cases, and when
Bergoglio argued that gay adoptions discriminate against children,
Fernandez compared his tone to "medieval times and the
Inquisition."
This kind of demonisation is unfair, says Rubin, who obtained an
extremely rare interview of Bergoglio for his biography, the "The
Jesuit."
"Is Bergoglio a progressive - a liberation theologist even? No.
He's no third-world priest.
Does he criticise the International Monetary Fund, and
neoliberalism? Yes.
Does he spend a great deal of time in the slums? Yes,"
Rubin said.
Bergoglio has stood out for his austerity.
Even after he became Argentina's top church official in 2001,
he never lived in the ornate church mansion where
Pope John Paul II stayed when visiting the country, preferring
a simple bed in a downtown building, heated by a small stove on
frigid weekends.
For years, he took public transportation around the city, and
cooked his own meals.
Bergoglio almost never granted media interviews, limiting himself
to speeches from the pulpit, and was reluctant to contradict
his critics, even when he knew
their allegations against him
were false,
said Rubin.
That attitude was burnished as human rights activists
tried to force him to answer uncomfortable questions
about what church officials knew and did about the
dictatorship's abuses after the 1976 coup.
Many Argentines remain angry over the church's acknowledged
failure to openly confront a regime that was kidnapping and
killing thousands of people as it sought to eliminate
"subversive elements" in society.
It's one reason why more than two-thirds of Argentines describe
themselves as Catholic, but fewer than 10 per cent regularly
attend mass.
Under Bergoglio's leadership, Argentina's bishops issued a
collective apology in October 2012 for the church's failures
to protect its flock.
But the statement blamed the era's violence in roughly equal
measure on both the junta and its enemies.
"Bergoglio has been very critical of human rights violations
during the dictatorship, but he has always also criticised
the leftist guerrillas; he doesn't forget that side,"
Rubin said.
The bishops also said "we exhort those who have information about
the location of stolen babies, or who know where bodies were
secretly buried, that they realise they are morally obligated to
inform the pertinent authorities."
That statement came far too late for some activists, who accused
Bergoglio of being more concerned about the church's image than
about aiding the many human rights investigations of
the Kirchners' era.
Bergoglio twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse
to appear in open court, and when he eventually did testify in
2010, his answers were evasive, human rights attorney Myriam
Bregman said.
At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio.
One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests -
Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics -
who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated
liberation theology.
Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to
the death squads by declining to tell the regime that
he endorsed their work.
Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion
in a German monastery.
Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary,
behind-the-scenes action to save them -
including persuading dictator Jorge Videla's family priest
to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader's
home, where he privately appealed for mercy.
His intervention likely saved their lives, but Bergoglio never
shared the details until Rubin interviewed him for the 2010
biography.
Bergoglio - who ran Argentina's Jesuit order during the dictatorship -
told Rubin that he regularly hid people on church property during
the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with
similar features, enabling him to escape across the border.
But all this was done in secret, at a time when church leaders
publicly endorsed the junta and called on Catholics to restore
their "love for country" despite the terror in the streets.
Rubin said failing to challenge the dictators was simply pragmatic
at a time when so many people were getting killed, and attributed
Bergoglio's later reluctance to share his side of the story as a
reflection of his humility.
But Bregman said Bergoglio's own statements proved church officials
knew from early on that the junta was torturing and killing its
citizens, and yet publicly endorsed the dictators.
"The dictatorship could not have operated this way without this
key support," she said.
Bergoglio also was accused of turning his back on a family that
lost five relatives to state terror, including a young woman
who was 5-months' pregnant before she was kidnapped and killed
in 1977.
The De la Cuadra family appealed to the leader of the Jesuits
in Rome, who urged Bergoglio to help them; Bergoglio then assigned
a monsignor to the case.
Months passed before the monsignor came back with a written note
from a colonel:
It revealed that the woman had given birth in captivity to a girl
who was given to a family "too important" for the adoption to be
reversed.
Despite this written evidence in a case he was personally involved
with, Bergoglio testified in 2010 that he didn't know about any
stolen babies until well after the dictatorship was over.
"Bergoglio has a very cowardly attitude when it comes to something
so terrible as the theft of babies.
He says he didn't know anything about it until 1985,"
said the baby's aunt, Estela de la Cuadra, whose mother Alicia co-
founded the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in 1977 in hopes of
identifying these babies.
"He doesn't face this reality and it doesn't bother him.
The question is how to save his name, save himself.
But he can't keep these allegations from reaching the public.
The people know how he is."
Initially trained as a chemist, Bergoglio taught literature,
psychology, philosophy and theology before taking over as Buenos
Aires archbishop in 1998.
He became cardinal in 2001, when the economy was collapsing, and
won respect for blaming unrestrained capitalism for impoverishing
millions of Argentines.
Later, there was little love lost between Bergoglio and Fernandez.
Their relations became so frigid that the president stopped
attending his annual "Te Deum" address, when church leaders
traditionally tell political leaders what's wrong with society.
During the dictatorship era, other church leaders only feebly
mentioned a need to respect human rights.
When Bergoglio spoke to the powerful, he was much more forceful.
In his 2012 address, he said Argentina was being
harmed by
demagoguery,
otalitarianism, corruption and efforts to secure
unlimited power.
The message resonated in a country whose president
was ruling by decree, where political scandals rarely were punished
and where top ministers openly lobbied for Fernandez to rule
indefinitely.
Additional reporting: AFP
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/austere-humble-jorge-mario-bergoglio-pope-francis-i-has-experience-with-scandal/story-e6frg6so-1226596904995
http://www.888c.com
God Bless
Those who know him describe the Archbishop of Buenos Aires and
primate of Argentina as a shy, softly-spoken man who shuns high
society.
He was born December 17, 1936 to a rail worker who emigrated from
northern Italy and a housewife.
The new pontiff went to a state-run school and studied to become a
chemical technician.
When he graduated at 22, he joined the Jesuits and took a degree in
philosophy.
He followed this with theology studies and was ordained in 1969.
He studied in Chile, and years later studied in Germany.
Bergoglio's legacy as cardinal includes his efforts to repair the
reputation of a church that lost many followers by failing to
openly challenge Argentina's murderous 1976-83 dictatorship.
He also worked to recover the church's traditional political
influence in society, but his outspoken criticism of President
Cristina Kirchner couldn't stop her from imposing socially liberal
measures that are anathema to the church, from gay marriage and
adoption to free contraceptives for all.
"In our ecclesiastical region there are priests who don't baptise
the children of single mothers because they weren't conceived in
the sanctity of marriage,"
Bergoglio told his priests.
"These are today's hypocrites.
Those who clericalise the Church.
Those who separate the people of God from salvation.
And this poor girl who, rather than returning the child to sender,
had the courage to carry it into the world, must
wander from parish to parish so that it's baptised!"
This sort of pastoral work, aimed at capturing more souls and
building the flock, is an essential skill for any religious
leader in the modern era, said Bergoglio's authorised biographer,
Sergio Rubin.
Bergoglio himself felt most comfortable taking a very low profile,
and his personal style has been the antithesis of Vatican splendor.
"It's a very curious thing: When bishops meet, he always wants to
sit in the back rows.
This sense of humility is very well seen in Rome," Rubin said
before the 2013 conclave to choose Benedict's successor.
Bergoglio's influence seemed to stop at the presidential palace door
after Nestor Kirchner and then his wife, Cristina Fernandez, took
over the Argentina's government.
His church had no say when the Argentine Supreme Court expanded
access to legal abortions in rape cases, and when
Bergoglio argued that gay adoptions discriminate against children,
Fernandez compared his tone to "medieval times and the
Inquisition."
This kind of demonisation is unfair, says Rubin, who obtained an
extremely rare interview of Bergoglio for his biography, the "The
Jesuit."
"Is Bergoglio a progressive - a liberation theologist even? No.
He's no third-world priest.
Does he criticise the International Monetary Fund, and
neoliberalism? Yes.
Does he spend a great deal of time in the slums? Yes,"
Rubin said.
Bergoglio has stood out for his austerity.
Even after he became Argentina's top church official in 2001,
he never lived in the ornate church mansion where
Pope John Paul II stayed when visiting the country, preferring
a simple bed in a downtown building, heated by a small stove on
frigid weekends.
For years, he took public transportation around the city, and
cooked his own meals.
Bergoglio almost never granted media interviews, limiting himself
to speeches from the pulpit, and was reluctant to contradict
his critics, even when he knew
their allegations against him
were false,
said Rubin.
That attitude was burnished as human rights activists
tried to force him to answer uncomfortable questions
about what church officials knew and did about the
dictatorship's abuses after the 1976 coup.
Many Argentines remain angry over the church's acknowledged
failure to openly confront a regime that was kidnapping and
killing thousands of people as it sought to eliminate
"subversive elements" in society.
It's one reason why more than two-thirds of Argentines describe
themselves as Catholic, but fewer than 10 per cent regularly
attend mass.
Under Bergoglio's leadership, Argentina's bishops issued a
collective apology in October 2012 for the church's failures
to protect its flock.
But the statement blamed the era's violence in roughly equal
measure on both the junta and its enemies.
"Bergoglio has been very critical of human rights violations
during the dictatorship, but he has always also criticised
the leftist guerrillas; he doesn't forget that side,"
Rubin said.
The bishops also said "we exhort those who have information about
the location of stolen babies, or who know where bodies were
secretly buried, that they realise they are morally obligated to
inform the pertinent authorities."
That statement came far too late for some activists, who accused
Bergoglio of being more concerned about the church's image than
about aiding the many human rights investigations of
the Kirchners' era.
Bergoglio twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse
to appear in open court, and when he eventually did testify in
2010, his answers were evasive, human rights attorney Myriam
Bregman said.
At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio.
One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests -
Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics -
who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated
liberation theology.
Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to
the death squads by declining to tell the regime that
he endorsed their work.
Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion
in a German monastery.
Both men were freed after Bergoglio took extraordinary,
behind-the-scenes action to save them -
including persuading dictator Jorge Videla's family priest
to call in sick so that he could say Mass in the junta leader's
home, where he privately appealed for mercy.
His intervention likely saved their lives, but Bergoglio never
shared the details until Rubin interviewed him for the 2010
biography.
Bergoglio - who ran Argentina's Jesuit order during the dictatorship -
told Rubin that he regularly hid people on church property during
the dictatorship, and once gave his identity papers to a man with
similar features, enabling him to escape across the border.
But all this was done in secret, at a time when church leaders
publicly endorsed the junta and called on Catholics to restore
their "love for country" despite the terror in the streets.
Rubin said failing to challenge the dictators was simply pragmatic
at a time when so many people were getting killed, and attributed
Bergoglio's later reluctance to share his side of the story as a
reflection of his humility.
But Bregman said Bergoglio's own statements proved church officials
knew from early on that the junta was torturing and killing its
citizens, and yet publicly endorsed the dictators.
"The dictatorship could not have operated this way without this
key support," she said.
Bergoglio also was accused of turning his back on a family that
lost five relatives to state terror, including a young woman
who was 5-months' pregnant before she was kidnapped and killed
in 1977.
The De la Cuadra family appealed to the leader of the Jesuits
in Rome, who urged Bergoglio to help them; Bergoglio then assigned
a monsignor to the case.
Months passed before the monsignor came back with a written note
from a colonel:
It revealed that the woman had given birth in captivity to a girl
who was given to a family "too important" for the adoption to be
reversed.
Despite this written evidence in a case he was personally involved
with, Bergoglio testified in 2010 that he didn't know about any
stolen babies until well after the dictatorship was over.
"Bergoglio has a very cowardly attitude when it comes to something
so terrible as the theft of babies.
He says he didn't know anything about it until 1985,"
said the baby's aunt, Estela de la Cuadra, whose mother Alicia co-
founded the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo in 1977 in hopes of
identifying these babies.
"He doesn't face this reality and it doesn't bother him.
The question is how to save his name, save himself.
But he can't keep these allegations from reaching the public.
The people know how he is."
Initially trained as a chemist, Bergoglio taught literature,
psychology, philosophy and theology before taking over as Buenos
Aires archbishop in 1998.
He became cardinal in 2001, when the economy was collapsing, and
won respect for blaming unrestrained capitalism for impoverishing
millions of Argentines.
Later, there was little love lost between Bergoglio and Fernandez.
Their relations became so frigid that the president stopped
attending his annual "Te Deum" address, when church leaders
traditionally tell political leaders what's wrong with society.
During the dictatorship era, other church leaders only feebly
mentioned a need to respect human rights.
When Bergoglio spoke to the powerful, he was much more forceful.
In his 2012 address, he said Argentina was being
harmed by
demagoguery,
otalitarianism, corruption and efforts to secure
unlimited power.
The message resonated in a country whose president
was ruling by decree, where political scandals rarely were punished
and where top ministers openly lobbied for Fernandez to rule
indefinitely.
Additional reporting: AFP
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/austere-humble-jorge-mario-bergoglio-pope-francis-i-has-experience-with-scandal/story-e6frg6so-1226596904995
http://www.888c.com
God Bless
My opinions are my own and and DD I post should be confirmed as unbiased
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