Earlier this week, Pope Francis released a statement which revealed that the Vatican would share its archives with families of the victims of Argentina’s military dictatorship (1976-1983). The Catholic Church has long been accused of complicity with the Junta; individuals within the clergy having been found guilty of engaging in profoundly immoral, as well as criminal acts. These range from torture, helping in the “re-homing” of
stolen babies, and conspiring to help dictatorship-era criminals evade justice.
The institution of Catholicism has demonstrated itself to be a sinister and retrogressive presence in Latin America. The rampant revelations of paedophilia throughout the region, as well as the Church’s ability to infringe on the political sphere (For example, the denial of an abortion to an
11 year old girl in Paraguay last year, who was raped by her stepfather, undeniably finds its roots in the influence of Catholic doctrine on public policy. It also serves as an extreme case of the powerful, region-wide religious conservatism that is at odds with women’s rights and access to abortion.), mean that it is difficult to assess the institution with complete impartiality.
While it would be somewhat facile to just recite the litany of horrors and criminal activities that the Catholic Church has engaged in and helped facilitate in Latin America (especially when considering how much has been written globally on the subject of Catholicism’s institutional criminality), it is necessary to begin by exemplifying the cooperation of the Catholic Church with the military regime. Addressing specific examples of Church-Dictatorship cooperation is clearly germane to the Vatican’s latest statement.
It has long been known that the Catholic Church played a role in helping conceal the stealing or “appropriation” of the babies of so called “terrorists” and “subversives”. This sickening practice aligned with both the interests of the Junta in dismantling the opposition, and the church in promoting Catholicism, as these babies were reassigned to “good catholic families” who supported the regime. The pressure from protest groups, spearheaded by the Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo, has resulted in trials against the perpetrators of these crimes, and the reunification of many callously separated families. Testimony from these
legal proceedings has attested to the active and direct role of clergymen in these crimes.
A madre de la Plaza de Mayo, still demanding justice for the families of the disappeared well after the Junta’s collapse. Photo (cc) Wikimedia, Javier Paredes
The clergy’s cooperation with the dictatorship does not end at child abduction. Clerical sympathy for the Junta was made even more manifest with the publication of Horacio Verbitsky’s El Silencio.In this book, senior Church figures were accused of having hidden political prisoners on an Island they owned during visit from a human rights delegation to the Argentinian mainland.
The acronym ESMA is synonymous with the depraved and savage mistreatment of “subversivos” during the Military Junta’s regime. For those who are not familiar with the navy training college cum torture centre that this acronym refers to, accounts of the horrors and obscenities committed inside its walls have been written by survivors, and can easily be found online. I mention ESMA because its spiritual figurehead, the facility’s Catholic Chaplain Christian Von Wernich (also an Inspector for the provincial police), was an active participant in the Junta’s program of abduction and sadism. Put on trial for murder and kidnapping, he was sentenced for life.
The old ESMA building, now a museum for remembering the atrocities committed during the dictatorship. Photo (cc) Wikimedia, Lahi
Pope Francis -formerly Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires- was himself the subject of legal complaints by human rights lawyers which accused him of having denounced two fellow jesuits to the Junta, and thus having been an accessory in state kidnapping. Although the case was dropped, he has also been criticised for many for his perceived silence
during the dictatorship, and failure to strongly denounce the Junta.
The scandals that have shaken the Church (and its adeptness at having bi-passed international law and justice) have undermined the legitimacy of the Catholic institution as an authority on moral values in the eyes of many, and exposed a need for institutional reform (Perhaps we can see this disillusionment with Catholicism as being reflected in the
declining numbers of Latin American Catholics, and the regional rise of evangelicalism).
The Pope’s tentative step towards greater transparency can be seen as an official recognition of the Argentinian Church’s complicity in state repression, and as part of the broader attempt to rejuvenate the Catholic Church worldwide, an organisation whose history has been tainted with hypocrisy and immorality. Pope Francis, whilst still far from living up to the promise of papal infallibility, is clearly progressive and reform minded. This latest declaration to share official Vatican archival documents with the families of victims is long overdue, but still a welcome move towards Church modernisation and atonement taking place under this Pope.
However, opening the Church’s archives to the families of victims, while important, is not as radical as it may first seem. It is not known if these archives are to be also made public, and with the current public release date of many Vatican archives being 2075, this is not an insignificant detail. Pope Francis may claim to be collaborating with the families of victims “in the service of truth, justice and peace”, but considering the history of the Catholic church in covering for its own and evading legal justice, the Vatican is simply not going far enough. A far greater level of Church transparency is needed.
The complicity of the Catholic church in the Junta is difficult to reconcile for many, given the still unknown fate of many desaparecidos. Photo (cc), Wikimedia, Pablo-flores
The secrecy of the Church, and the protections and barriers it has been allowed through its status as a religious organisation, have permitted it to operate in a realm removed from the standards of accountability and public disclosure usually required of any large organisaiton. This insularity and secrecy is a relic from its dark past, and has no place in the present (I have no intention of even beginning to discuss the Church’s need to reform official dogma, which in itself is antiquated and frequently out of step with scientific progress). If it truly wants to break with its tattered legacy of criminality and abuse of power, the Church needs to adapt by becoming more open and cooperative, at a rate that even Pope Francis may not be able to achieve.
The Pope’s recent declaration will never right the wrongs of the Church’s immoral complicity with the fascistic Junta, and while positive, the Church needs to go further if it is to draw a line under its shameful history in Argentina and the region. Therefore, let it be just the first of many much more decisive steps towards the reformation and greater openness with the Catholic institution.
During Argentina’s military dictatorship, despite the aforementioned collusion of many clergymen, their were also a number clerics who openly denounced the dictatorship. Photo (c) La Primera Piedra 2016
NOTE: Although tangential, I feel it is necessary to point out the obvious: there have been many within the catholic clergy who have been champions of social justice and instrumental in opposing the tyrants, robber barons and murderers who have invariably emerged over the course of Latin America’s development. It is for this reason that many brave members of the church often end up being targets themselves: an alarming number of priests have been
murdered in Mexico since the escalation of the Drug war in 2006, being some of the few figures of local authority courageous enough to speak out openly against the cartels.
During Argentina’s military dictatorship, despite the aforementioned collusion of many clergymen, their were also a number clerics who openly denounced the dictatorship. Many of these heroic individuals were
assassinated by the state, including 2 Bishops. Furthermore, during the trial of the aforementioned Von Wernich, a fellow clergyman, the Reverend Rubén Capitanio,
testified against his disgraced peer, and went so far as to publicly denounce the “sinful degree” to which his own Church had cooperated with the state. A condemnation of institutional problems is not an attack on the many noble individuals who make up that institution.
Written By: Daniel Barker Flores on October 29, 2016.
Last revised by: Ailana Navarez
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