The anointment of reactionary Argentine cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francisco marks the intensification of the Vatican鈥檚 corporate military crusade in a region holding around half of the world鈥檚 Catholics. It is also a response to the continental upsurge of the left.
The advent of the Hugo Ch谩vez-led Bolivarian Revolution in the 1990s has bolstered the Cuban Revolution and progressive or reforming governments have swept to power in Nicaragua, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Bolivia, El Salvador, Brazil and Pope Francisco's home of Argentina, which only last year began the re-nationalisation of its energy reserves.
Papalisation of an Italian-Argentine with established right-wing credentials seems a consummate political move to strengthen the prospects of an ideological reconquest. This is aimed to occur in tandem with global corporate designs on Latin America and builds on feverish Church opposition to nationalist, anti-imperialist or non-aligned regimes.
Integration push
Popular opposition to neoliberalism and support for Latin American integration is palpable: Ch谩vez and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa recently won landslide re-elections. Abstention organised by the left won the Chilean mayoral elections last year.
US-backed coups by the local oligarchies were needed to oust the governments of left-wing Catholic bishop turned president Fernando Lugo in Paraguay and nationalist Manuel Zelaya in Honduras.
In Brazil (Dilma Rousseff) and Uruguay (Jos茅 Mujica), former Marxist guerillas have been elected president. Rousseff now presides over the world鈥檚 fourth economy, consolidating initiatives by her predecessor Lula that challenge the domination of the global North.
There have been increasingly continental demands that Church assets be taxed like any other corporation, or nationalised and purged of parasitic strata.(1)
Combined with the decisive left turn described, all of this represents the most serious threat to the Church鈥檚 huge wealth and influence since Mexico's nationalist president L谩zaro C谩rdenas closed down Church schools and curtailed Church power in the 1930s.
Capital accumulation in feudal, semi-capitalist, capitalist and then neoliberal Latin America has, since the Spanish invasion 520 years ago, been politically and economically legitimised by the Catholic Church. The Church itself has been a key beneficiary of the process.
A doctrinal schooling system complemented by a severely anti-republican series of universities developed rapidly after Latin America's wars of independence (1808-1826). From the early 20th century, these were complemented by an organised political expression of the Catholic Church in the Christian Democrat parties.
These often began as a variant of Spanish fascist dictator Franco鈥檚 Falange movement, being both neocolonial in structure and pro-imperialist in policy.(2)
However, such was the popular rejection of the church鈥檚 politics by the 1960s, that radical liberation theology was able to flourish in Latin America for around 15 years.
Pope John Paul II was anointed in 1978 and worked to reverse this trend. He instructed Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero in 1978 to be tolerant towards the militarisation of his country and refused to condemn the slaying of Catholic clergy by death squads (including Romero himself shortly afterwards).
He also gave cameo public endorsements for military dictatorships during visits to Argentina in 1982 and Chile in 1987.
Economically, the Church is 鈥渟tructured much like a multinational conglomerate with subsidiary corporations spread all across the globe鈥, Sister Mary Kelly wrote in her 2004 book Taught To Believe the Unbelievable. 鈥淭he Vatican is ... corporate headquarters (and) each diocese is also incorporated, acting as a branch of the parent company.鈥(3)
Argentine historian Luis Vitale once described this holy transnational corporation as also the sole global political party.
The Economist has called the US branch 鈥渁s big as any company in America鈥, calculating its undeclared tax-free net wealth at US$170 billion.(4)
Still, across the world the sordid protection that the capitalist state has historically afforded the church鈥檚 institutionalised paedophelia has lately been confronted by scandal after scandal.
That protection applies systematically to Church assets, hugely bolstered by five centuries of collaboration in the pillage of Latin America鈥檚 unique riches. Since foreign capital and the CIA adopted the model of Brazil's 1964 military as its template for intensified corporate exploitation of the region, some of the world鈥檚 most repressive dictatorships have provided cover for the Church.
Pope Francisco
The concept of elections is meaningless in the tax-free, homophobic, misogynist refuge of institutional Catholicism. So it seems prudent to talk of an anointment in the case of the new chief executive of Vatican Inc. One that could only take place with the backing of its money-laundering mafia and the ultra-right Opus Dei.
But why a Latin American to now head this ancient Roman relic of Western imperialism?
Prominent Argentine human rights lawyer Marcelo Parilli has confirmed Bergoglio鈥檚 refusal to protect detained and tortured priests and his unflinching commitment to the Catholic hierarchy鈥檚 support for Argentina's military dictatorship of 1976-1982.
In recent testimony, priest Orlando Yorio said his internment at notorious detention centre ESMA, where thousands of people were tortured and disappeared by the regime, could only have come about by Bergoglio giving the junta a list of priests to detain.
From 1977 the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have searched for their children either born in detention 鈥 many as a consequence of rape-as-torture 鈥 or tortured and disappeared by the US-backed terrorist state.
Now that Bergoglio has become infallible, MPM鈥檚 president prefers to denounce his collaboration by faint praise, stating simply that 鈥渁lmost from the moment we began our struggle, we related only to Third World priests".
"We made a list of 150 priests assassinated by the dictatorship, which the official church silenced ... the official church is an oppressor, the Third World church a liberator ... As to this pope named yesterday, we say only: Amen.鈥(5)
The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo seek their grandchildren, either abducted at the time of a parent鈥檚 sequester or born in military detention. Most were systematically adopted out to wealthy junta supporters, often military officers on a waiting list.
Last year, ex-dictator Videla was sentenced to 50 years in jail, partly for what Federal Oral Tribunal N潞 6 described as a 鈥淪ystematic Plan for Baby Robbery.鈥(6)
Its president has described the church as a junta collaborator, publicly-silent since. Bergoglio was 鈥渦nder a shadow鈥 from the time one grandmother sought his support to locate her disappeared granddaughter, and was allegedly told that she should be forgotten, was now in good hands, and that 鈥渓ots of money鈥 had been paid for such children.(7)
In 1977, Bergoglio, representing the Jesuit鈥檚 private Universidad de San Salvador, conferred an honorary doctorate on Admiral Emilio Massera, by then head of ESMA and later a junta member. Massera helped mastermind the 鈥渄irty war鈥 in which about 30,000 Argentines were 鈥渄isappeared鈥.
Since 1972, Bergoglio had been a member of the paramilitary organisation Guardia de Hierro (Iron Guard), which later appropriated assets of the disappeared.(8)
National intelligence archives also incriminate Bergoglio in an attempt to purge 鈥渓eft Jesuits鈥 from the order. Ch谩vez, Lugo and Correa all identify as Christians, but theirs is rooted in the liberation theology practised by Romero, Colombian guerilla priest Camilo Torres and archbishop Helder Camara in Brazil's miserable slums.
However, the liberation wing of the Church never represented more than 15% of Catholics, a fact reflected in the preponderance of reactionary popes.
Consistent
Papal baton-passing from a former member of the Nazi Youth to a key collaborator with Argentina鈥檚 fascist dictatorship is entirely consistent with the historical mission of the Catholic Church.
The capitalist press has gone into overdrive to bury Bergoglio鈥檚 ugly past in a sea of working-class metaphors, as if walking or catching a bus were revolutionary pursuits that expunged the Church鈥檚 key role from feudalism to capitalism of ideological support to the status quo.
Spectacular reminders of the new spring in Latin America, such as 2 million Venezuelans filing past Ch谩vez鈥檚 body in the first seven days of his resting in state, can only have underlined the Church鈥檚 slide from grace.
These can be contrasted with the popular response to Bergoglio鈥檚 election in Buenos Aires. Argentine journalist Andres Figueroa, who lives in the centre of the capital, told 麻豆传媒 Weekly that there was 鈥渘o public demonstration, small or mass. Just an activity performed in the cathedral ... where the traditional political class poured out views 'of convenience and opportunity'.鈥(9)
Indeed, the Argentine constitution commits the state to financially sustain the church. Although in practice, the Catholic empire has perfected its parasitic relation to capitalism, most Latin American constitutions enshrine the separation of church and state. The Venezuelan constitution, a key popular gain of Ch谩vez's government, accords all religions, including indigenous, equal rights.
Bergoglio is merely another corporate director dressed in gold-adorned robes instead of Gucci suits, advocating for absolute capitalism while posing as a defender of the people.
The most recent popes have been anti-socialist crusaders whose real constituencies are the financial institutions and global corporations with which the church has been historically integrated and richly blessed.
Violeta Parra, Chilean co-founder of the Latin American New Song movement last century, rhetorically sang: 鈥渨hat says the Sacred Father, who lives in Rome, as they behead his doves?鈥 Based on Pope Francisco鈥檚 history, 鈥済od bless the beheaders鈥 may remain the riposte.
[Robert Austin is editor-coauthor of Imperialismo Cultural en Am茅rica Latina: Historiograf铆a y Praxis (2007) and was visiting professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 1995. Its rector famously refused a posthumous mass in the early 1990s for PUCC academics and students executed by the Pinochet dictatorship. He later threatened Austin with expulsion from PUCC were he to repeat his public support for a monument to Salvador Allende, reported but distorted in 鈥楻etos y aportes recibieron agentes de la colecta por monumento a Allende鈥, La Segunda (daily newspaper), Santiago de Chile, 19 April 1995.. That monument now stands behind La Moneda, the presidential palace in the capital. Translations throughout are by the author]
End notes:
1) 脕lvaro Ramis, 鈥樎緿eben pagar impuestos las organizaciones religiosas? Le Monde Diplomatique, Chilean Edition, July 2012, p. 12.
2) Salvador Allende, Discursos, Havana, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1976, pp. 9-20; Renato Cristi, El Pensamiento Pol铆tico de Jaime Guzm谩n, Santiago de Chile, LOM, 2000, passim.
3) Sister Mary Kelly, Taught to Believe the Unbelievable: A New Vision of Hope for the Catholic Church and Society, Lincoln NE, iUniverse Star, 2004, p. 47.
4) 鈥楾he Catholic Church in America: earthly concerns鈥, from The Economist (print edition), 20.8.12, at http://www.economist.com/node/21560536
5) 鈥楧eclaraciones de Hebe de Bonafini sobre el papa Francisco鈥, 13.3.13, at http://www.madres.org/navegar/nav.php
6) Gerardo Aranguren, 鈥楲as Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo celebran hoy 35 a帽os de lucha por la identidad鈥, in Tiempo Argentino, 22.10.12, at http://tiempo.infonews.com/2012/10/22/argentina-88971-las-abuelas-de-plaza-de-mayo-celebran-hoy-35-anos-de-lucha-por-la-identidad.php
7) Estela de Carlotta, audio interview 13.3.13, at http://www.abuelas.org.ar/
8) Hans Hansen, 鈥楲os testimonios que apuntan a Bergoglio en violaciones a los DD.HH. y muestran su complicidad con la dictadura militar argentina鈥, El Mostrador, 13.3.13 at http://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/mundo/2013/03/13/los-testimonios-que-apuntan-a-bergoglio-en-violaciones-a-los-dd-hh-y-muestran-su-complicidad-con-la-dictadura-militar-argentina/
9) Andr茅s Figueroa, email to author, 15 March 2013.