It’s my understanding that the Catholic Church has had a problem for decades with Jesuits in South America – so many of them turn into “Marxist firebrands” for whatever reason. Hopefully Francis/ Bergoglio is not among them!

It includes the following:

So in terms of the current context of Latin American politics, Bergoglio stands in a position analogous to that of John Paul II in relationship to the politics of Eastern Europe.

Very interesting!

Very important point. Over the decades athe Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul has written a number of perceptive-and controversial- articles about Argentina in the New York Review of Books.

In a 1992 article [Argentina-Living with Cruelty, NYR, January 30,1992] which is unfortunately behind a paywall, Naipaul wrote about an interview he had with a former guerrilla. The former guerrilla talked about radical priests from Accié³n Caté³lica who were counselors at his high school. According to the former guerrilla, “The Montonero guerrillas, the Peronista guerrillas started because of the influence of these priests. One of them was called Father Mujica.He was killed by paramilitary forces in 1974.”

Naipaul remembered that two decades before he had interviewed Padre Mujica at a “villa miseria” [slum] where Father Mujica presided over a church. At the time, Naipaul did not realize that Mujica was “one of the patrons of the guerrillas.” A middle class businessman had presented Mujica as “one of the ‘Priests for the Third World.’ ” [quotes from a photocopy of the 1992 article]

These excerpts from Naupaul’s 1972 NYR article, The Corpse at the Iron Gate, where he interviews Father Mujica, illustrates some of the irrationality behind the Liberation Theology proponents and the Montonero/Peronista guerrillas.

The priest in charge was one of the “Priests for the Third World.” He wore a black leather jacket and his little concrete shed of a church, oversimple, rocked with some amplified Argentine song. It had been whispered to me that the priest came of a very good family; and perhaps the change of company had made him vain. He was of course a Peronist, and he said that all his Indians were Peronist. “Only an Argentine can understand Peronism. I can talk to you for five years about Peronism, but you will never understand.”
But couldn’t we try? He said Peronism wasn’t concerned with economic growth; they rejected the consumer society. But hadn’t he just been complaining about the unemployment in the interior, the result of government folly, that was sending two Indians into his shantytown for every one that left? He said he wasn’t going to waste his time talking to a norteamericano; some people were concerned only with GNP.

[How could Naipaul, a Trinidadian of East Indian ancestry who spoke English with some combination of Trini/UK accents, could be mistaken for a Norteamericano/American, is beyond my ken. OTOH, my Chilean boss in Trinidad was very pleased when I reported to him that one of our Trini employees told me the Chilean spoke with “a Yank accent”- which to my Yanqui ears he did not.It all depends on your perspective, I guess.]

… But the man with me was uneasy. He said we should at least wait and tell the father I wasn’t an American. We did so. And the father, abashed, explained that Peronism was really concerned with the development of the human spirit. Such a development had taken place in Cuba and China; in those countries they had turned their backs on the industrial society.

The government is to be blamed for policies which do not promote economic growth. But economic growth is not as important as “development of the human spirit” as is done in totalitarian societies such as Fidel’s Cuba or Mao’s China. More irrationality follows.

These lawyers had been represented to me as a group working for “civil rights.” They were young, stylishly dressed, and they were meeting that morning to draft a petition against torture. The top-floor flat was scruffy and bare; visitors were scrutinized through the peep-hole; everybody whispered; and there was a lot of cigarette smoke. Intrigue, danger. But one of the lawyers was diverted by my invitation to lunch, and at lunch–he was a hearty and expensive eater–he made it clear that the torture they were protesting against wasn’t to be confused with the torture in Peré³n’s time.
He said: “When justice is the justice of the people men sometimes commit excesses. But in the final analysis the important thing is that justice should be done in the name of the people.” Who were the enemies of the people? His response was tabulated and swift. “American imperialism. And its native allies. The oligarchy, the dependent bourgeoisie, Zionism, and the ‘sepoy’ left. By sepoys we mean the Communist Party and socialism in general.” It seemed a comprehensive list. Who were the Peronists? “Peronism is a revolutionary national movement. There is a great difference between a movement and a party. We are not Stalinists, and a Peronist is anyone who calls himself a Peronist and acts like a Peronist.” …
“There are no internal enemies,” the trade union leader said, with a smile. But at the same time he thought that torture would continue in Argentina. “A world without torture is an ideal world.” And there was torture and torture. “Depende de quién sea torturado. It depends on who is tortured. An evildoer, that’s all right. But a man who’s trying to save the country–that’s something else.”

Years before the butchers and torturers of the 1976-83 military government took over, the opponents of the military gave sanction to torture. This shows that the military torturers and butchers were unfortunately not an aberration of Argentine society, but an expression of it.

Had the guerrillas not continued their kidnappings, killings and bombings while Argentina was governed by democratically elected Peronist Presidents [Juan and Isabel/Evita II], the military butchers would never have staged their coup in 1976.

[There were right wing Peronists and left wing Peronists, which explains why left wing Peronists would continue their kidnapping,killings, bank robberies, and bombings under a democratically elected Peronist government.]

From what little I have read, the new Pope has been an opponent of the Kirchners, Nestor and Cristina/Evita III. Bear in mind that the Kirchners- especially Nestor- had former Montoneros in upper level positions in the government.

Following are some NYR/Naipaul links:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1972/oct/19/comprehending-borges/?pagination=false Comprehending Borges

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1972/aug/10/the-corpse-at-the-iron-gate/?pagination=false The Corpse at the Iron Gate

(Not in criticism of the blog hostess, of course–just the prevailing idea) Yeah, because choosing people for a job according as they tick the requisite “diversity” checkboxes has worked wonders for the American presidency. /sarc

He’s a foe of Liberation Theology.

There’s still more to learn about the new Francis I, and I’m not ready to declare any judgement complete on just one data point. But I am heartened by yet another Pope continuing in the line from John Paul through Benedict XVI in rejecting the unholy (I’m not being sarcastic about that term; I really mean “unholy”) forced-interjection of Marxist revolutionary reactionism into Catholic practice.

I guess you’d have to be Latin American or Filipino to truly grasp how horrific it is to see an honest and humble priest suborned into becoming a guerrilla agitator outside of society and the very flock he’s supposed to serve, but I’ve really got an aversion to the whole notion of Liberation Theology. And it stems from a different place than where either John Paul or Benedict came at it from.