{"id":1600,"date":"2011-10-10T16:33:15","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T16:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=1600"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:03:55","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:03:55","slug":"the-church-the-dirty-war-and-taking-bad-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/10\/the-church-the-dirty-war-and-taking-bad-news\/","title":{"rendered":"The Church, the Dirty War and Taking Bad News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Argentina\u2019s Guerra Sucia,<\/em> or Dirty War, didn\u2019t get that name by accident. From 1976, when a military junta seized control of the government, until 1983, when the country\u2019s National Reorganization Process held general elections, thousands of citizens \u2014 some claim as many as 30,000 \u2014 were made to disappear. Argentina\u2019s Commission on the Disappearance of Persons discovered that many, following capture and torture by military forces, were thrown, alive, from low-flying airplanes into the Rio Plata and South Atlantic.<\/p>\n

Only now is the public learning how the junta handled the Dirty War\u2019s strangest spoils. Over 500 children of desaparecidos, <\/em>or disappeared persons, were distributed to military and security officers who raised them as their own, having first promised to conceal the children\u2018s true identities.<\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s New York Times<\/em> recounts the story of Victoria Montenegro,<\/strong><\/a> who was born in 1976 to Roque and Hilda Montenegro, both of whom were assassinated for suspected subversive activities when their daughter was only four months old. Hernan Tetzlaff, the officer who supervised the assassinations, adopted her, renaming her Maria Sol. For the next 25 years, Tetzlaff and his wife gave Montenegro \u201ca strong ideological education,\u201d insisting variously that the government\u2019s crimes had been exaggerated, and were justified. She accepted her adoptive father\u2019s line until 2000, when the courts, having obtained a sample of her DNA, revealed to her the names and fate of her birth parents. <\/p>\n

Thanks to advances in DNA testing, over 100 other \u201cappropriated\u201d children have \u201crecovered\u201d their biological families. <\/p>\n

The role of the Church in these illicit adoptions has yet to be determined, but Adolfo Perez Esquivel, winner of the Pope John XXIII Peace Memorial, claims the Argentine hierarchy was both aware and complicit. According to the Times,<\/em> he has said that priests and bishops \u201cdefended the taking of children as a way to ensure they were not \u2018contaminated\u2019 by leftist enemies of the military.\u201d So far, both Argentine and Vatican officials have declined to comment. <\/p>\n

If Perez\u2019s accusations turn out to represent a Big Lie, it\u2019ll be a Big Lie alarmingly congruent with the facts as we know them. The \u201cdirty\u201d tactics through which the junta made itself infamous were imports \u2014 from France, courtesy of a clique of former army officers who\u2019d pioneered their use in the Algerian War.<\/strong><\/a> Their guru was Jean Ousset, a Catholic scholar who predicted a final showdown between Marxism and Christianity, and argued that Natural Law justified the use of extreme measures in defense of the faith. When, following a failed putsch and a failed assassination attempt against President De Gaulle, these officers and their ideology found themselves in need of asylum, Argentina provided one. Argentine naval officers offered to arrange visas and day jobs for the refugees; in return, the refugees were to share their expertise in counter-insurgency.<\/p>\n

Presiding at the opening of the Higher Military College, where the Frenchmen conducted their seminars, was Cardinal Antonio Caggiano, vicar for Argentina\u2019s military ordinariate. According to Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky,<\/strong><\/a> one point in the curriculum was to explain a jarring quote taken from Dietrick von Niecken, who served as bishop of Verden in the early 15th century:<\/p>\n

When the existence of the Church is threatened, it is no longer bound by the commandments of morality. When unity is the aim, all means are justified: deceit, treachery, violence, usury, prison and death. Because order serves the good of the community, and the individual has to be sacrificed. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Caggiano \u201cgave his blessing and invoked God\u2019s aid so that the military might \u2018discover the true path to defend the peace of our nations.\u201d <\/p>\n

To many, this will read like a kick aimed right at the Church\u2019s groin. The media carries nothing but bad news \u2014 abused children, clashes between popular priests and their far less popular bishops. What\u2019s the use of dredging up bad olds? With the Irish government trying to pass laws un-sealing the confessional, wouldn\u2019t it be more useful to write something that shows the Church in her best light \u2014 something about nuns and orphans, say? Jeepers, Lindenman, you heartless SOB, where\u2018s your team spirit? <\/p>\n

Certainly there\u2019s a case to be made for discretion. But I wonder if it doesn\u2019t seem stronger to cradle Catholics. They\u2019re the ones who can remember a time when the Church was respected \u2014 or at least when there were better career paths for American opinion writers than bad-mouthing her. I wonder whether these old hands can appreciate the perspective of people like me, who joined the Church after the Pius Wars and in the middle of the child abuse scandal. Having seen the Church\u2019s reputation bottom out, we understand instinctively that there\u2019s nowhere for it to go but up. Stories like this one \u2014 well, they might not help the ascent, but they can\u2019t do much to slow it down. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Argentina\u2019s Guerra Sucia, or Dirty War, didn\u2019t get that name by accident. From 1976, when a military junta seized control of the government, until 1983, when the country\u2019s National Reorganization Process held general elections, thousands of citizens \u2014 some claim as many as 30,000 \u2014 were made to disappear. Argentina\u2019s Commission on the Disappearance of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,20,49,72],"class_list":["post-1600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alfonso-perez-esquivel","tag-argentina","tag-catholicism","tag-dirty-war"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Church, the Dirty War and Taking Bad News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Argentina's Guerra Sucia, or Dirty War, didn't get that name by accident. 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