Why is Timothy Dolan smiling?
[This is a special commentary on the election of the new pope.]
When I was a child I used to naively believe that religion and politics were two different things. Today it’s almost impossible to believe that. While Argentines appear to be happy about one of them being selected as pope to more than a billion Catholics, they should tone down their enthusiasm. In particular, they and Catholics everywhere, as well as those people who left the Church in droves, should be asking: Why is Timothy Dolan and other right-wing “princes of the Church” smiling?
Dolan not only is smiling. He said on NBC’s Today, “We got a pope, and we got a darn good one.” For him and his conservative cardinal buddies, yes, these are probably honest sentiments. For the rest of us, we should be dubious. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now known as Pope Francis, at the very least will most certainly continue the conservative tradition of the Church, dooming it to eventual irrelevancy. Dolan and his fellow travelers to the Conclave like the first part of that statement and don’t realize that they and their followers will be victims to the second part.
Pope Francis also has some baggage that might haunt him as he tries to pursue some kind of ministry as Bishop to Rome during his stay in the Vatican. Not long ago I reviewed the book by Edgardo David Holzman titled Malena. It was historical fiction, but the role of the Argentine Church in that book is more history than fiction. This is why the Argentine people shouldn’t be so quick to celebrate. Let me quote from my own review:
“Using the facile excuse of anti-Communism and preservation of Western Christianity, a brutal military junta ‘disappeared’ thousands of Argentines. The military took lessons from the Nazis and improved on their techniques. The implication here is that the American CIA was also involved (the U.S. was certainly complicit—see below). It didn’t have to perform such a direct role in Argentina as in Chile, where the murder of Allende and establishment of the butcher Pinochet were engineered by that agency—the Argentine military was as fascistic as they come and didn’t need much outside help.”
“Operation Condor was a [CIA] program designed to filter out ‘undesirables’ (read: anyone not agreeing with the fascists). Its participants were Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil, all military governments run by ruthless thugs. This program was responsible for at least 60,000 deaths. The U.S. provided technical support and supplied military aid to the participants, as portrayed in this novel.”
“The official campaign of terrorism in Argentina was carried out by the military with ready accomplices found in the police, the courts, and the Church. The latter was complicit in some of the worst atrocities, especially against Jews. During and after WWII the Argentine Church ran Nazi relocation programs, bringing the likes of Eichmann to Argentine shores…”
Like it or not, innocent or not, Bergoglio is associated with the Argentine evil engineered by the junta. He was a high-ranking Jesuit official when the junta usurped power in 1976. Priests Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics in May of that year were kidnapped by the navy, the same instigator Holzman considers in Malena. They were found months later, drugged and almost naked in a field. They claimed they were secretly jailed for their work with the poor. In a lawsuit in 2005, Bergoglio was accused of involvement in the abductions. A spokesman for him called the claims “old slander.”
I want to give the man a chance. Maybe he was innocent and priests Yorio and Jalics were just misfits who didn’t know their proper places in the Catholic hierarchy and resented authority figures. Maybe Bergoglio was guilty, but not too guilty, and has atoned for his sins. (Asking the mostly Italian crowd to pray for him might be due to other factors beyond humility–who knows?) The pope is just a man, and men make mistakes. But he is a political man, and that worries me. The Church has a two-thousand-year tradition of not being able to separate politics and religion.
Pope Francis garnered second place in the previous Conclave, where Cardinal Ratzinger, tainted by his ties with the Nazis, won the vote that time. I’m seeing a pattern here. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but Timothy Dolan is smiling.
As always, I’m open to comments, even if you disagree. Let the conversation begin….
And so it goes….
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March 15th, 2013 at 7:27 am
Morning, Steve,
I don’t know enough to disagree. I’ve always felt, from my relatively close contact with the Jesuits at Loyola in Chicago, that they were a different breed of priest, more open to science and to philosophy, as opposed to having a rigid theology. But maybe that’s just the classroom. I am hoping that, like some Supreme Court justices, this pope moves toward practicality and modernization of opinions in the Church. As a Catholic (not really practicing), I have NEVER felt that the pope is more than a man. I hope he is a really GOOD man, but I know there have been many throughout history who weren’t very good.
I don’t like the Nazi ties in this whole thing with Benedict and Francis. (I’ll use their “pope” names because, well, they’re easier to type…:-) )
March 15th, 2013 at 7:56 am
And top o the mornin’ to you, too, Scott,
I echo your sentiments about Jesuits (I think I was more complete in my thoughts in a previous comment to one of your comments)–I’ve found that they seem to be more open-minded, but, then again, the Catholic Church seems to be more open-minded than many fundamentalist Protestant sects (world-created-six-thousand-years-ago types, for example), which is saying a lot. I knew nothing about the alleged involvement of Pope Francis with the Argentine Junta, but the time overlap worried me, so I studied it a bit. I used articles from the LA Times and Reuters. It struck me as curious that Yorio and Jalics were also Jesuits.
As for the Nazis and their disciples in Argentina, Benedict was in the Youth Corps, but many young men joined to prove their love of the Fatherland and fealty to Hitler, so I don’t make much of that–at least with the data I have at hand. I worried more about him and other cronies in the Church hierarchy involved in covering up priest-pedophiles.
Argentina, on the other hand, is something else. While the European Church just shuttled the Nazis off to South America (Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay were other well known asylums), the Argentine Church was a direct collaborator with the Junta, especially in their anti-Semitic policies. Interestingly enough, our CIA consulted for all these nefarious practices via Operation Condor. The CIA is like Pontius Pilate–they’ll forever be wringing their hands trying to get the blood of innocents off them! American foreign policy at its worst!
But maybe Francis, if he sinned in the past, will atone for them and do good things. The jury is out. Apparently that jury is composed of human innocents, both living and dead, because God has chosen him to be the Vicar of Catholics everywhere. 😉
Take care,
Steve
March 15th, 2013 at 8:21 am
Hi Steve:
You have a great background from which to analyze that area of the world…I didn’t know much about the Juntas and the Churches involvement although I, of course, knew about the Nazi connection.
I do not expect the church to change with this new pope–maybe he is a more humble, kinder, gentler version of Benedict but he is of the age and era where change will not be in the cards–nor would he be allowed to make changes. Doctrine cannot be changed–only policy can change, but the lines between what is Doctrine (belief) and what is policy (anti-birth control) are too blurred for anyone to take it on.
I am doubtful there will ever be another Vatican II (which would be Vatican III) with the intent being to initiate real change.
Someone at work asked me the other day–as I am the Catholic ‘scholar’ among us–“what’s the deal with the Pope-guy…is he like the Pope of the whole world or what?”
When I said, he is the leader for Catholics this young man said, “Catholics–why is the whole world interested in them?” New generation!
It is amazing to me now at this stage in life to look back and have things that went on in my Catholic upbringing come into clear focus–the priests who were suddenly relocated to other parishes, the altar boys whose parents suddenly stopped coming to Church and catechism, nuns who were nervous around certain priests…there were more layers to that life than we ever knew! One time I overheard my parents discussing why Father Garrity (good Irishman that he was) was relocated to a small parish in Maine. My father said he suspected Garrity had a little problem with the drink–even my parents were probably naive as to the reasons!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day my Irish friend!
Debby
March 15th, 2013 at 9:51 am
Hi Debby,
Good to hear from you. And a happy St. Paddy’s to you and all my readers!
Two things I’ll say about the election of Pope Francis (in addition to all the above, of course): (1) His election was a surprise, because Europe, and specifically Italy, has dominated the papacy for so long; and (2) this surprise shifts the center of the Church to Latin America, where there are many Catholics (in response to the young man’s question), with their number growing by leaps and bounds (in contrast with the U.S. and Europe). Whether these two facts are significant or not, time will tell.
For St. Paddy’s Day, we’ll probably hit two local pubs–Tierney’s and Egan and Sons. Although the good saint didn’t rid Eire of all the snakes (some government officials, pedophile priests, and unwed mothers’ sweat shops run by nuns), we’ll celebrate his good name with a party!
All the best,
Steve
P.S. I don’t know if you’ve read Flight from the Mother World yet. Probably not your cup o’ tea. You’ll probably enjoy The Golden Years of Virginia Morgan much more.