“Jorge Mario Bergoglio… has been a staunch supporter of  US imperial interests in Latin America for more than 30 years.”

 “…one of the main supporters… of Argentina’s military dictatorship which came to power in a CIA supported coup in 1976.”

 “Jorge Mario Bergoglio not only supported the US sponsored dictatorship, he also played a direct and complicit role in the ‘Dirty War’ (la guerra sucia) in liaison with the military Junta headed by General Jorge Videla, leading to the arrest, imprisonment, torture and disappearance of progressive Catholic priests and laymen who were opposed to Argentina’s military rule.” 

The statements above were made in an online article by Michel Chossudovsky, a Russian-Canadian researcher, immediately after Pope Francis was elected. It should be noted that Chossudovsky is known as a purveyor of conspiracy theories, but he’s hardly alone in pointing the finger at the former Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires as a figure complicit in Argentina’s “Dirty War“. Argentinian left-wing investigative journalist Horatio Verbitsky has made similar claims. In 2005, Verbitsky published a book entitled, The Silence: From Paul VI to Bergoglio: The Secret Relations Between the Church and the ESMA. (The ESMA was the naval academy-turned torture facility used by the Argentinian junta during the war.) Verbitsky’s book led to a lawsuit against Jorge Bergoglio, alleging that he was involved in the kidnappings of two Jesuit priests in the 1970s. After twice refusing to testify, Bergoglio took the stand in 2010. Start asking around among well-connected Catholics in Buenos Aires, and you’ll hear a consistent refrain: everyone has heard he was involved, nobody has been able to prove it, he always denied everything.