Catholic Priest convicted for kidnapping, murder and torture

by John Doe Wed Oct 10, 2007 18:32

He would go to prisoners cells after they had been tortured by police and offer to hear their confession. If the prisoners were not prepared to 'confess' to him, in the belief they were about to be killed, he would offer them deals if they would confess to the police.

This guy was just one of many who participated in the Dictatorship. But what about Chile and the rest of South and Central America where the Roman Catholic Church was foremost in the Cold War against 'Marxism'. Marxism was the name given to anything that challenged the status quo.

"Feck Off!"

"That would be an ecumenical matter."

by Romero Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:47

There were collaborators and there were opponents among clergy and nuns during South American dictatorships. Some foreign missionary orders opposed the regimes and paid a heavy price. In Argentina (or was it Chile?) members of the Maryknoll sisters were murdered by soldiers/secret police who sprayed bullets through the windows of their residence. In Chile, Sheila Cassidy, a lay doctor working an a poor area of a city, was arrested tortured with electrodes in a place where other parish workers were also detained, tortured and sometimes raped. Cassidy was subsequently interviewed on the Late Late Show by Gay, after publishing her memoirs. She joined an order of nuns.

There is a feature film titled Imagining Argentina starring Antonio Banderas and Emma Thompson, about a theatre director who writes against the dictatorship. His wife first and then his teenage daughter are kidnapped by plainclothes armed men and taken to a prison run by members of the Argentinian navy. They are tortured and raped regularly by officers, and so are the other female prisoners. The church is not mentioned, but the protests of the Mothers of the Disappeared are featured.

by observer Thu Oct 11, 2007 10:53

As Romero says, there were as many - probably more in fact - Catholic clerics who opposed right wing regimes. Unlike yourself who I am sure has suffered greatly for you beliefs. On a more pedantic level your refrence to the fight against "Marxism" indicates further evidence of a lack of knowledge of Latin America. Almost invariably regimes referred to the fight against communism.

by John Doe Thu Oct 11, 2007 14:41

I'm not exactly sure how one is to tell the difference between the nazi priests and nuns and the 'good' priests and nuns. Maybe the good ones are the ones who reject the Church and leave?

Maxrism, Communism, they were all just bogey words anyway and it didn't matter when you were being tortured, what they called you. The last and present popes were two of the greatest bastards when it came to attacking the left, which to them included the Liberation Theology section of their own church.

Since I am not a Catholic, I do not share your need to defend the organisation from it's evil leaders and ranks. It should be closed down and buried.

We're the Good guys

We're the Bad guys

by Malvolio Thu Oct 11, 2007 14:48

So many people in so many political organisations have collaborated with evil during the twentieth century, on the left and the right. Better close down all political groups and parties everywhere, they're so bloodily compromised. Better still close down the whole human race: it's made a bloody disgrace of itself it has.