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Task Force Urges Pope Francis to Practice "Golden Rule" for LGBTQ People and Families

by via National LGBTQ Task Force
Washington, DC, September 24, 2015 — The National LGBTQ Task Force is urging Pope Francis to practice the “Golden Rule” for LGBTQ people and their families. The Pope emphasized the often quoted axiom in his address to a joint session of the US Congress—but went on to implicitly criticize marriage equality and reproductive rights, issues of vital importance to LGBTQ people and their allies.
“We welcome Pope Francis’ advocacy for the ‘Golden Rule,’ which calls on everyone to ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ But this doesn’t seem to apply to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our families. Nor does it apply to the millions who need vital access to reproductive health services. We urge Pope Francis to use his position of immense power to create a truly welcoming and affirming church for all LGBTQ people — and to treat our families with dignity and equal respect. We also urge him to modernize the church’s position on reproductive health.

“That said, we welcome Pope Francis’s use of his pastoral voice to express the need for eliminating poverty and unemployment; the urgency for fair and comprehensive immigration reform; the abolition of the death penalty; the creation of an economy that is ‘modern, inclusive and sustainable;’ the better stewardship of the environment; and the need to end war and to promote peace. It’s unfortunate that a leader who can be so good on these issues can be so out of touch on others,” said Rea Carey, Executive Director, National LGBTQ Task Force.

http://www.thetaskforce.org/task-force-urges-pope-francis-to-practice-golden-rule-for-lgbtq-people-and-their-families/
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From: Washington’s Pope”? Who is Pope Francis?

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Argentina's "Dirty War" By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, September 25, 2015
Global Research 14 March 2013
http://www.globalresearch.ca/washingtons-pope-who-is-francis-i-cardinal-jorge-mario-bergoglio-and-argentinas-dirty-war/5326675

Jorge Mario Bergoglio (now known as Pope Francis) 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.

“While the two priests Francisco Jalics y Orlando Yorio, kidnapped by the death squads in May 1976 were released five months later. after having been tortured, six other people associated with their parish kidnapped as part of the same operation were “disappeared” (desaparecidos).”

The “dirty war” in Latin America under Operation Condor in which he participated was predicated on the “Culture of Death”. The 1976 military coup was supported by Wall Street precisely with a view to imposing “the economy of exclusion”, namely neoliberalism conducive to the impoverishment of the Argentinian population.

The following article was first written in March 2013 following election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope Francis I by the Vatican conclave.

Michel Chossudovsky, May 28, 2014, updated, September 25, 2015

Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?

In 1973, he had been appointed “Provincial” of Argentina for the Society of Jesus.

In this capacity, Bergoglio was the highest ranking Jesuit in Argentina during the military dictatorship led by General Jorge Videla (1976-1983).

He later became bishop and archbishop of Buenos Aires. Pope John Paul II elevated him to the title of cardinal in 2001

When the military junta relinquished power in 1983, the duly elected president Raúl Alfonsín set up a Truth Commission pertaining to the crimes underlying the “Dirty War” (La Guerra Sucia).

The military junta had been supported covertly by Washington.

US. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger played a behind the scenes role in the 1976 military coup.


Kissinger’s top deputy on Latin America, William Rogers, told him two days after the coup that “we’ve got to expect a fair amount of repression, probably a good deal of blood, in Argentina before too long.” … (National Security Archive, March 23, 2006


The military junta led by General Jorge Videla (left) was responsible for countless assassinations, including priests and nuns who opposed military rule following the CIA sponsored March 24, 1976 coup which overthrew the government of Isabel Peron:


”Videla was among the generals convicted of human rights crimes, including “disappearances”, torture, murders and kidnappings. In 1985, Videla was sentenced to life imprisonment at the military prison of Magdalena.”


One of the key appointments of the military junta (on the instructions of Wall Street) was the Minister of Economy, Jose Alfredo Martinez de Hoz, a member of Argentina’s business establishment and a close friend of David Rockefeller.

The neoliberal macro-economic policy package adopted under Martinez de Hoz was a “carbon copy” of that imposed in October 1973 in Chile by the Pinochet dictatorship under advice from the “Chicago Boys”, following the September 11, 1973 coup d’Etat and the assassination of president Salvador Allende.


The Dirty War”: Allegations directed Against Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio



Condemning the military dictatorship (including its human rights violations) was a taboo within the Catholic Church. While the upper echelons of the Church were supportive of the military Junta, the grassroots of the Church was firmly opposed to the imposition of military rule.

In 2005, human rights lawyer Myriam Bregman filed a criminal suit against Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, accusing him of conspiring with the military junta in the 1976 kidnapping of two Jesuit priests.

Several years later, the survivors of the “Dirty War” openly accused Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of complicity in the kidnapping of priests Francisco Jalics y Orlando Yorio as well six members of their parish, (El Mundo, 8 November 2010)

(Image Left: Jorge Mario Bergoglio and General Jorge Videla)

Bergoglio, who at the time was “Provincial” for the Society of Jesus, had ordered the two “Leftist” Jesuit priests and opponents of military rule “to leave their pastoral work” (i.e. they were fired) following divisions within the Society of Jesus regarding the role of the Catholic Church and its relations to the military Junta.

While the two priests Francisco Jalics y Orlando Yorio, kidnapped by the death squads in May 1976 were released five months later. after having been tortured, six other people associated with their parish kidnapped as part of the same operation were “disappeared” (desaparecidos). These included four teachers associated with the parish and two of their husbands.


the course of the trial initiated in 2005:


“Bergoglio [Pope Francis I] twice invoked his right under Argentine law to refuse to appear in open court, and when he eventually did testify in 2010, his answers were evasive”: “At least two cases directly involved Bergoglio. One examined the torture of two of his Jesuit priests — Orlando Yorio and Francisco Jalics — who were kidnapped in 1976 from the slums where they advocated liberation theology. Yorio accused Bergoglio of effectively handing them over to the death squads... by declining to tell the regime that he endorsed their work. Jalics refused to discuss it after moving into seclusion in a German monastery.” (Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2005 emphasis added)

The Secret Memorandum

The military government acknowledged in a Secret Memo (see below) that Father Bergoglio had accused the two priests of having established contacts with the guerilleros, and for having disobeyed the orders of the Church hierarchy (Conflictos de obedecencia). It also stated that the Jesuit order had demanded the dissolution of their group and that they had refused to abide by Bergoglio’s instructions.

The document acknowledges that the “arrest” of the two priests, who were taken to the torture and detention center at the Naval School of Mechanics, ESMA, was based on information transmitted by Father Bergoglio to the military authorities. (signed by Mr. Orcoyen)

(see below).

While a former member of the priests group had joined the insurgency, there was no evidence of the priests having contacts with the guerrilla movement.

The entire Catholic hierarchy was behind the US sponsored military dictatorship. It is worth recalling that on March 23, 1976, on the eve of the military coup:


“Videla and other plotters received the blessing of the Archbishop of Paraná, Adolfo Tortolo, who also served as vicar of the armed forces. The day of the takeover itself, the military leaders had a lengthy meeting with the leaders of the bishop’s conference. As he emerged from that meeting, Archbishop Tortolo stated that although “the church has its own specific mission . . . there are circumstances in which it cannot refrain from participating even when it is a matter of problems related to the specific order of the state.” He urged Argentinians to “cooperate in a positive way” with the new government.” (The Humanist.org, January 2011, emphasis added)

In endorsing the military Junta, the Catholic hierarchy was complicit in torture and mass killings, an estimated “22,000 dead and disappeared, from 1976 to 1978 … Thousands of additional victims were killed between 1978 and 1983 when the military was forced from power.” (National Security Archive, March 23, 2006).
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