Anti-clerical campaign against pope: Vatican
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VATICAN CITY (AP) - The honeymoon that Pope Francis has enjoyed since his remarkable election hit a bump on Friday, with the Vatican lashing out at what it called a defamatory and "anti-clerical left-wing" media campaign questioning his actions during Argentina's murderous military dictatorship.
On Day 2 of the Francis pontificate, the Vatican denounced news reports in Argentina and beyond resurrecting allegations that the former Jorge Mario Bergoglio failed to openly confront the junta responsible for kidnapping and killing thousands of people in a "dirty war" to eliminate leftist opponents.
Bergoglio, like most Argentines, didn't publicly confront the dictators who ruled from 1976 to 1983, while he was the leader of the country's Jesuits. And human rights activists differ on how much blame he personally deserves.
Top church leaders had endorsed the junta and some priests even worked alongside torturers inside secret prisons. Nobody has produced any evidence suggesting Bergoglio had anything to do with such crimes. But many activists are angry that as archbishop of Buenos Aires for more than a decade, he didn't do more to support investigations into the atrocities.
