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Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday. (AFP)
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Vatican City, March 15: For the first time since the election of Pope Francis two days ago, the Vatican today formally defended him from accusations that, decades ago, in the so-called Dirty War in Argentina, he knew about serious rights abuses but failed to do enough to halt them.
The Reverend Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said there had “never been a credible accusation against him” relating to the period in the 1970s when he was the superior of the Jesuit order in Argentina.
Indeed, “there have been many declarations of how much he did for many people to protect them from the military dictatorship”, Father Lombardi said. “The accusations belong to the use of a historical-social analysis of facts for many years by the anticlerical left to attack the church and must be rejected decisively.”
Pope Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, was elected by fellow cardinals on Wednesday and much of his behaviour since then has seemed to indicate a shift of tone at the Vatican to a more humble and frugal approach.
When he addressed cardinals today, for instance, he spoke frequently without notes, addressing them as “Brother Cardinals” rather than as the more usual “Lord Cardinals” and the Vatican press office highlighted other shows of modesty and lack of formality since his election.
But the question of his past has never been far below the surface, rekindling accusations relating to a conflict in which as many as 30,000 people disappeared, were tortured or killed by the dictatorship.
At the news conference today, Father Lombardi repeated assertions by a prominent human rights campaigner that there had been “no compromise by Cardinal Bergoglio with the dictatorship”.
The debate has simmered in Argentina, with journalists there contradicting Cardinal Bergoglio’s account of his actions. These accounts draw not only on documents from the period, but also on statements by priests and lay workers who clashed with Cardinal Bergoglio.
The renewed discussion of the case intruded into a day when Francis earlier offered warm praise today to his predecessor, Benedict XVI, saying that his nearly eight years as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics had “lit a flame in the depths of our hearts.”
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