New research reveals Argentine bishops knew the military junta was 'disappearing' people and chose n

VATICAN DISPATCH

New research reveals Argentine bishops knew the military junta was ‘disappearing’ people and chose not to speak out publicly

Gerard O’Connell
June 23, 2023

Carlos Galli (chief researcher), Federico Tavelli and Gianni La Bella (researchers) at the presentation of La Verdad Los Hará Libres (The Truth Will Set You Free) June 16, 2023. (Photo by Gerard O'Connell)
The first two volumes of a groundbreaking research project presented at the Vatican June 16 reveal in detail for the first time how Argentina’s Catholic Church and the Vatican responded to the violence in Argentina between 1966 and 1983, and particularly during the military dictatorship (1976-83).

Based on research conducted with unprecedented access to Vatican archives and the archives of the Argentine bishops’ conference, the project reveals that the Argentine bishops knew for certain as early as 1979 that it was the military junta’s official policy to “disappear” people in order to quash opposition. The Vatican urged the bishops’ conference to intervene using all possible means, but the bishops chose to keep their interventions private “for fear of weakening [the military government] and for fear of communism.”

La Verdad Los Hará Libres (The Truth Will Set You Free) is the Spanish title of all three volumes of this original interdisciplinary, five-year research project involving no less than 20 researchers. The focus in each volume is disclosed in the subtitles: Volume 1: “The Catholic Church in the spiral of violence in Argentina 1966-1983”; and Volume 2: “The Argentine Bishops Conference and the Holy See faced with state terrorism, 1976-1983.” Volume 3 will be published later this year.

This pioneering work was presented in the Marconi Hall of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications by a panel of three researchers led by the well-known Argentine priest-theologian the Rev. Carlos Galli, dean of the Faculty of Theology of the Universidad Católica Argentina (U.C.A.) in Buenos Aires, which has been entrusted with the research project. He was flanked by another U.C.A. professor, Federico Tavelli, who also teaches at Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg in Germany, and by Gianni La Bella, an Italian professor of history at Modena University.

More:
https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/06/23/argentina-dirty-war-pope-francis-bishops-disappeared-245548