"Bergoglio, born to Italian immigrants in Buenos Aires 76 years ago, became the top Jesuit official for Argentina in 1973, three years before the military seized power. Democracy was restored in 1983, after a "dirty war" in which perhaps 30,000 were killed or "disappeared"—overwhelmingly peaceful left-wing dissidents. In 1998 he became archbishop of Buenos Aires"
Among some of the abuses that occurred then was:
"the systematic practice of seizing the offspring of dissidents who were captured while pregnant, estimating some 400 such cases.
The 2008 case in which Bergoglio declined to testify—above the protests of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo rights group—concerned the theft of the babies of the disappeared. After the disappearance of her pregnant daughter in 1977, the founder of the grandmothers' group, Alicia "Licha" de la Cuadra, even appealed to the leader of the Jesuit order in Rome, who urged Bergoglio to help. Bergoglio then assigned a monsignor to the case. Months later, the monsignor turned over a written note from a colonel asserting that Licha's daughter had given birth in captivity—but the baby girl had been given to a family "too important" for the adoption to be reversed. Bergoglio did comment on the controversy in his 2010 testimony—two years after Licha died at the age of 93. He then said he didn't know of any stolen babies until after the dictatorship ended—despite the letter from the colonel, since revealed in the press.
"Bergoglio has a very cowardly attitude when it comes to something so terrible as the theft of babies," Licha's surviving sister, Estela de la Cuadra, told the Associated Press upon the Cardinal's selection as pope. "He says he didn't know anything about it until 1985. 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."
https://countervortex.org/node/12088
In 1982 the US government acknowledged the existence of the child abductions, years later sending a memo to Argentina giving credence to the belief that the child abductions were systematic:
"Abrams said he suggested that the junta might tell "everything it could about the fate of individuals" or invite the Catholic Church to reunite the children with their biological families. Apparently the generals wouldn't consider either plan. "The military is absolutely united and determined to avoid widespread and vengeful punishment for its acts," Abrams wrote. All the same, Abrams saw no problem with having the administration of then-US president Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) certify that the dictatorship was making progress on human rights."
During the dictatorship's "dirty war" against supposed leftist "terrorists," the military regularly killed women prisoners and then secretly gave their babies and small children to military and other families. According to the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, about 500 children were "appropriated" in this way; the group has succeeded in reuniting more than 100 with their biological families.https://countervortex.org/node/10678
"Jorgelina’s adoptive parents weren’t in the military, but they were religious. The adoption was arranged through the Catholic church. In a climate in which the “appropriation” of children was condoned by the military government and the Catholic church, Ana had little hope of getting her granddaughter back. She visited Buenos Aires several times, hoping to meet Jorgelina. In one letter to her, she wrote: “Today is your ninth birthday, and even though I am in Argentina, your adoptive parents won’t let me see you. They say you belong to them …”
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/27/child-argentinas-disappeared-new-family-identity
Bergoglio has loss of memory on this and other abuses at the time. I wonder how many Argentinian babies wound up adopted out to the US? “They are running a campaign for the search for disappeared grandchildren because several may have been taken to Europe,” she says."https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/dec/27/child-argentinas-disappeared-new-family-identity
@carmencita
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[–] HennyPenny [S] ago
"Estela’s husband and brother-in-law were executed in a manner typical of the period — they were thrown alive out of an airplane. She doesn’t know how her brother died, or the fate of her sister, Elena. Her stolen niece, Ana, would be 35 now, and the family still looks for her." "Bergoglio, then head of the Jesuits in Argentina, waited months to act, they say, and when he did, it was only to pass the case off to a local Catholic bishop. It was too little, too late, the family claims."
https://nypost.com/2013/03/17/victims-of-argentinas-dirty-war-of-the-late-1970s-blast-popes-deadly-silence/