Perón died in 1974 and within two years the country descended into another military dictatorship and a cruel "dirty war". Guerrilla groups sprang up, specialising in bombings, kidnappings and assassinations; the military waged firefights with them and arrested thousands of innocent people suspected of fellow-travelling. The military death squads imprisoned, tortured and killed an estimated 30,000 people. Under the leadership of General Leopoldo Galtieri, the junta eventually fell apart only after the Falklands debacle, signalling Argentina's return to a uneasy form of populist, corporatist-style "democracy".

Meanwhile, Father Bergoglio climbed the Catholic hierarchy steadily. Known for his "option for the poor" (he ate in soup kitchens and took the bus), he nevertheless distanced himself from the liberation theology movements associated with left-wing Jesuits elsewhere in Latin America. Had he not done so, he would never have risen to the episcopate under John Paul II's papacy; and he might well have been found dead in a ditch - just one more clerical victim of the dirty war.

There are tales that as a senior Jesuit priest he failed to intercede with the junta to free two slum-worker priests from prison and torture. One family that lost a daughter and granddaughter accuses him of lying when he told a tribunal that he had no knowledge of the "stealing" of children from suspected dissidents. The allegations are unsafe, but no one can doubt that he came safely through those dark years by weighing every word and action with consummate care. Continue reading

Sources

• New Statesman
• Image: The Guardian

In a word, it's well worth the read.

The book first appeared in Spanish in 2010, and it's invaluable as a guide to the thinking of the pope across a wide range of issues — from Capitalism and globalization to interreligious dialogue and feminism, even matters of leadership style.

"The bad leader is the one who is self-assured and stubborn," the pope writes at one point. "One of the characteristics of a bad leader is to be excessively normative because of his self-assurance."

Those lusting for a bumper crop of new papal norms, in other words, may be in for a few lean years.

Though he doesn't exactly come off as a laugh riot, Francis even serves up a couple of quips. Discussing a certain strain of feminism that he believes promotes a masculine model of gender conflict, he refers to it tongue-in-cheek as "chauvinism with skirts."

One caution is in order: It's not always possible to draw a straight line between views expressed prior to election to the papacy, and what someone will do once they're actually in the job.

Famously, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger expressed opposition to Turkey's candidacy to join the European Union in a 2004 interview with Le Figaro, but as pope he upheld the Vatican's standard line, which is neutrality as long as certain human rights guarantees are met (especially religious freedom).

That said, for those wondering where Francis will come down on any number of issues — priestly celibacy, end-of-life care, refusal of communion to Catholic politicians who break with church teaching, and so on — On Heaven and Earth is the best early guide out there. Continue reading

Sources

• John L Allen Jnr in National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Malaysia Insider

The dialogue between Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Rabbi Abraham Skorka has just been published in English by Image Books, with the title On Heaven and Earth: Pope Francis on Faith, Family, and the Church in the 21st Century.

"When a priest leads a diocese or a parish, he has to listen to his community, to make mature decisions and lead the community accordingly," the future Pope said.

"In contrast, when the priest imposes himself, when in some way he says, ‘I am the boss here', he falls into clericalism."

On worldly priests, he said: "One Catholic theologian, Henri de Lubac, says that the worst that can happen to those that are anointed and called to service is that they live with the criteria of the world instead of the criteria that the Lord commands from the tablets of the law and the Gospel. The worst that can happen in the priestly life is to be worldly, to be a ‘light' bishop or a ‘light' priest."

Other comments from the future Pope Francis include:

On the Devil: "Maybe his [the Devil's] greatest achievement in these times has been to make us believe that he does not exist, and that all can be fixed on a purely human level…. Man's life on Earth is warfare; Job says it, meaning that people are constantly put to the test; that is to say, a test to overcome a situation and overcome oneself."

On opening the Vatican's World War II-era archives relating to Pope Pius XII: "They should open them and clarify everything. Then it can be seen if they could have done something, to what extent it could have been done, and if we were wrong in something we will be able to say: ‘We were wrong in this.' We do not have to be afraid of that. The objective has to be the truth."

Sources:

Zenit

National Catholic Reporter

Image Books

Image: TPM Livewire