Between The Lines - Robert Parry: Pope Francis' conduct during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship (Week Ending March 29, 2013)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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Questions Linger on the Conduct of Newly Named Pope Francis During Argentina's Brutal Military Dictatorship

RealAudio MP3

Posted March 20, 2013

Interview with Robert Parry, investigative journalist and editor of ConsortiumNews.com, conducted by Scott Harris

With the retirement of Pope Benedict XVI, and the recent election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as the Catholic Church’s first Latin American and Jesuit Pope, disturbing questions have been raised about the new pontiff’s conduct during the reign of Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. As part of Argentina’s Catholic hierarchy at the time, Father Bergoglio reportedly remained silent about the military junta’s repression of suspected leftists and dissidents that resulted in an estimated 30,000 deaths through torture, execution and “disappearance.”

Although there are conflicting reports about his conduct, human rights activists have accused Bergoglio of being complicit in the military’s kidnapping of two Jesuit priests who worked with the poor in Buenos Aires slums during Argentina’s “Dirty War.” The two priests expelled from the Jesuit Order by Francis were later arrested, tortured and imprisoned for five months before being released. Accounts of the abduction by one of the priests who has since died and comments by a family member cast doubt on denials of complicity by Francis and the Vatican’s statement that accusations against Pope Francis are defamatory.

Throughout the Cold War years, the U.S. government through the CIA, supported many of Latin America’s military governments. Both Washington and the Catholic Church often accepted the military’s atrocities, based on their mutual opposition to social justice movements labeled as "communist." But the Catholic Church was itself divided at the time as many priests and nuns identifying with liberation theology sided with these movements that advocated for the regions’ poor majority. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with investigative journalist Robert Parry, who discusses the lingering questions about the conduct of Pope Francis’ conduct during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship.

Robert Parry is editor with ConsortiumNews.com and one of the reporters who helped expose the Iran Contra scandal in the mid-1980s. He is the author of “America’s Stolen Narrative.” Find links to Parry’s columns and other articles on the pope’s conduct during Argentina’s “Dirty War,” at consortiumnews.com.