'Dirty War' Priest Gets Life Term

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chris_molter said:
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7035294.stm

Hopefully, this man was not acting with the protection of his Bishop or in collusion with any other Priests. God have mercy! šŸ˜¦
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Coming from Argentina, Iā€™m skeptical about the truth here. This could be a case of Church persecution, where the Argentinian government fabricated information against the priest and Church, in order to protect former government people, from prosecution. Former members of the Nazi party, attempted to finger the Catholic Church for involvement in the Holocaust. Of course the truth was the opposite. This could be the same sort of situation.

If on the other hand, this is indeed true, and the Church was collaborating with a dictatorship, the scandal against the Church would be very bad.

Jim
 
Here is CNNā€™s version (from the AP).

Presuming that this is not some kind of persecution of the Church in Argentina, that this priest acted on his own. I wonder what his bishop knew.
 
:eek: Well it could be persecution of the Catholic Church.
However,from what little i have read,the Ustachi during WW2
with the aid of some priests tortured and killed people,mainly Orthodox in Serbia and that part of the world.
Iā€™ll have to find some links on this and post them.

Well , yes,I wonder too if his bishop was aware of any of this.
hard to say.
 
HollyDolly said:
:eek: Well it could be persecution of the Catholic Church.
However,from what little i have read,the Ustachi during WW2
with the aid of some priests tortured and killed people,mainly Orthodox in Serbia and that part of the world.
Iā€™ll have to find some links on this and post them.

Well , yes,I wonder too if his bishop was aware of any of this.
hard to say.
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Iā€™d be skeptical of this claim because by WW2, the Catholic Church was outlawed in the Soviet Union. Priest executed, or were imprisoned into the Gulag system. The only Church allowed to operate was the Russian Orthodox, and even they, were controlled by the government. It may be Russian Orthodox priest who helped the government in its persecution the Catholics.

Jim
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Iā€™d be skeptical of this claim because by WW2, the Catholic Church was outlawed in the Soviet Union. Priest executed, or were imprisoned into the Gulag system. The only Church allowed to operate was the Russian Orthodox, and even they, were controlled by the government. It may be Russian Orthodox priest who helped the government in its persecution the Catholics.

Jim
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During WWII, Serbia was not part of the Soviet Union. It was part of Yugoslavia, which was then ostensibly, a republic and loosely aligned with the Allies.

The ethnic and sectarian strife in that regions has been going on since long before the fall of the Roman Empire. Sadly, I think as long as more than one person lives in that region, these conflicts will continue.

As for what priests did there, well, I do not know about that. Not all priests are saintly. And not all accusations against priests are motivated by a search for truth.
 
rpp said:
During WWII, Serbia was not part of the Soviet Union. It was part of Yugoslavia, which was then ostensibly, a republic and loosely aligned with the Allies.

The ethnic and sectarian strife in that regions has been going on since long before the fall of the Roman Empire. Sadly, I think as long as more than one person lives in that region, these conflicts will continue.

As for what priests did there, well, I do not know about that. Not all priests are saintly. And not all accusations against priests are motivated by a search for truth.
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You are correct! I misread Serbia for Siberia.

I stand corrected!
Jim
 
Here is what the Bishop of Buenos Aires had to say:
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires responded quite differently to the courtā€™s verdict, with a public statement indicating that any Catholic who participated in the ā€œdirty warā€ against the leftists in Argentina ā€œdid so on his own responsibility, erring and sinning gravely against God, against mankind, and against his own conscience.ā€
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CW News story
 
JimR-OCDS said:
You are correct! I misread Serbia for Siberia.

I stand corrected!
Jim
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No problem. šŸ™‚ Just be glad the previous poster didnā€™t talk about Georgia (US state and slavic country) or Australia/Austria. I get them confused all the time. šŸ¤·
 
While I can appreciate the scepticism of some posters, it does seem that the church in Argentina was, at times, on the side of the brutal military regime. Two key books documenting the subject are El silencio (The Silence) by journalist Horacio Verbitsky, and Maldito eres tu (You are Damned): The von Vernich Case by Hernan Brienza, also a journalist. They make chilling reading.

Nevertheless, there are many examples of Catholic priests who worked in defense of human rights in Argentina and some lost their lives doing so. The president of the group Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, Nora Cortinas, recently said: ā€œMany priests were chaplains inside the barracks of the concentration camps. We want to point out that there was a sector of the church that didnā€™t have anything to do with the dictatorship. On the contrary, they supported us and reported the crimes committed at the time. But most of the representatives from the church participated in the celebration of death and torture.ā€

I well remember the case of an Irish missionary priest, Fr Patrick Rice who was working among the poor of a slum area when he was arrested in 1976. He was subjected to hooding, water-torture, continuous electric shocks, and near lynching until he was released following the intervention of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. He subsequently left the priesthood. I read recently that he attended this trial in La Plata and met one of the witnesses, a woman who had been imprisoned with him. She had mentioned him in her testimony at the trial and said: "Fr Patricioā€¦ was very badly tortured but celebrated a Mass for us with dry bread and a chalice made out of cigarette paper. I am not a believer but it was the most moving Mass I ever took part inā€¦ā€.
 
I am sorry to say that the Church has sided with some very brutal governments. A prime example for us in the west is the support and cooperation between the Church and the Franco regime in Spain during the 20th century.

Priests can be criminals like anyone else. Of course, it is very difficult, if not impossible for us to really learn much about this case, having to rely on the media as we do. Could be political or it could be a straightforward prosecution of criminal activity.
 
OriginalJS said:
I am sorry to say that the Church has sided with some very brutal governments. A prime example for us in the west is the support and cooperation between the Church and the Franco regime in Spain during the 20th century.
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Franco was a good leader!

While some members of the Church have sided with bad governments in the past (an example being the Croatian Ustashi), the Church was right to side with Franco.
 
OriginalJS said:
I am sorry to say that the Church has sided with some very brutal governments. A prime example for us in the west is the support and cooperation between the Church and the Franco regime in Spain during the 20th century.

Priests can be criminals like anyone else. Of course, it is very difficult, if not impossible for us to really learn much about this case, having to rely on the media as we do. Could be political or it could be a straightforward prosecution of criminal activity.
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Very true. In fact, if anyone reads about Archbishop Oscar Romero, they would learn how the Church was in tight with the ruling upper class in El Salvador. They never suspected that when they recommended Romero to Rome, to become Bishop, that he would side with the poor, but thought that he would keep the Church in sync with the status-quo.

Jim
 
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