Doug Saunders
The Globe and Mail, Mar. 16, 2013
“Though Father Bergoglio was known to care for the poor, he had always opposed these more radical movements. But, like a large number of colleagues, he was silent on the military junta.”
In Rome, he has made his start as the mild-mannered, bus-riding, collegial pontiff who pays his own hotel bills and is known for washing the feet of stigmatized AIDS patients.
In Argentina, however, Pope Francis is known as a staunch ideological conservative with a long history of unusually public engagement with political life.
Both stories have been circulating since the new pontiff was elected on Wednesday. But to understand how they fit together, history is the best guide.
The leader of the Roman Catholic Church has always been a political figure. But Francis, the first non-European pope in 13 centuries, may be poised to bring a distinctly different, South American flavour of right-wing politics to the Vatican: It would include the familiar rigid defence of tradition, but also a newly expansionist and confrontational side – an insistent voice of overt conservatism.… [To read the full article, click here.]