Pope Francis orders Vatican to open files on Argentina dictatorship

[Judi Lynn]

Pope Francis orders Vatican to open files on Argentina dictatorship

Papal nuncio had close relationship with 1976-83 military junta

Argentinian pontiff acts after meeting with one of mothers of ‘disappeared’

Uki Goñi in Buenos Aires
Wednesday 29 April 2015 15.01 EDT

Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican to open its files on Argentina’s military dictatorship, a move that could help the families of thousands of victims of the military regime finally discover the fate of their loved ones.

“This is the pope’s wish – for something to be done – so he has asked the secretariat of state to take charge of it, and work has already begun on declassifying the Vatican archives related to Argentina’s dictatorship,” Father Guillermo Karcher, an Argentinian priest who is a close aide of the pope, said in an interview with a Buenos Aires radio station.

During the 1976-83 dictatorship, 20,000 people were made to “disappear” by the Argentinian authorities, who saw them as subversives. The Vatican collected a large amount of information on these cases, principally through the papal nuncio’s office in Buenos Aires.

The pope acceded to the opening of the Vatican archives at a meeting last week with Lita Boitano, the 83-year-old mother of two sons who were “disappeared” during the dictatorship.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/29/pope-francis-argentina-orders-vatican-open-files-dictatorship

LBN:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141080603