The election of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis has focused worldwide attention on Argentina and evoked memories of that country’s “Dirty War” of the mid-1970s. During that conflict, 18 priests, 11 seminarians and about 50 Catholic workers were killed, or disappeared, when government death squads tried to eliminate its leftist opponents.

Some observers in Argentina have criticized Bergoglio for not speaking up against the military government, but a growing number of Catholics, including prominent liberation theologians have muted their criticisms and support the new pontiff’s initiatives to reform the church and focus on serving the poor and disenfranchised.

During Argentina’s “dirty war” 18 priests, 11 seminarians and about 50 Catholic workers were killed, or disappeared, as death squads tried to eliminate left-leaning activists.

In 1976, Bergoglio was a 36–year-old Jesuit provincial superior in Buenos Aires. Two of his priests, Francisco Jalics and Orlando Yorio, Worked in Bajo Flores, a shantytown Argentines call a Villa de Miseria (Village of Misery.) They were devotees of the theology of liberation.

Bergoglio warned the priests to stay away from Bajo Flores since being there endangered their lives. The men disobeyed him, insisting that the people needed them, that were not doing anything subversive, but simply ministering to the poor.

Argentine Journalist Horacio Verbitsky caused a firestorm recently when he claimed that Bergoglio spread rumors to the military that Jalics and Yorio were allied with anti-government guerillas.

Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, denied the allegation, claiming he did not give the men up, but helped secure their release.

Meanwhle, the Vatican’s position is that are ‘“no credible accusations against him,” according to spokesman Federico Lombardi, also a Jesuit.

Liberation theologians Leonardo Boff of Brazil, Jon Sobrino of El Salvador and Pablo Richard of Costa Rica insist that Bergoglio’s experiences in Argentina have seasoned him and prepared him for instituting much needed church reforms.

Boff sees great hope that “Francis of Rome” will emulate Francis of Assisi seizing a historical opportunity to transform the church and return it to its simpler, charismatic roots, free from materialism and corruption.

Among those who share this hope is Joan McCarthy, a former Dominican nun from Oakland, California who spent three years in Argentina (1974-76), barely escaping torture and death at the hands of the Argentine military.

McCarthy currently lives near Cordoba, Argentina. I recently spoke with her by phone.

: You are back in Argentina now. What is the sense there regarding the allegations against Bergoglio since he became Pope Francis?

Joan McCarthy: Bergoglio was not into the theology of liberation as were those two priests. They were living in the Villas de Miseria (shantytowns). Bergoglio was not. He didn’t agree with what they were doing, though he may have changed is mind later. He was made a superior at age 36.

He asked the priests to leave their work because his theology differed from theirs and because he was afraid for their safety. By disobeying him they were left on their own.

MD: Bergoglio claims he saved their lives.

JM: Yes, he offered to say a private Mass at General Jorge Videla’s home and he intervened on behalf of the priests. That’s what saved them. His mistake was not realizing what would happen to the priests by withdrawing his support for them. Certainly he was not complicit with the military as were many priests and bishops. His was a more quiet type of diplomacy.

MD: How did the church in Argentina become so ultraconservative, so fascist?

JM: I don’t know why, exactly. The bishops have always been extremely conservative. After Bishop Angelelli of La Rioja was assassinated, it took 40 years to promote his cause for beatification in Rome. The late traditionalist Archbishop Marcel Lefevre, had a seminary in Buenos Aires, and the professors were close advisers to the military. They preached that those who promoted liberation theology were communist infiltrators. There are documented cases of priests attending torture sessions in the junta’s prisons.

MD: Who were the “Priests of the Third World?”

JM: It was a movement of priests who promoted liberation theology and set up base communities in the Villas de Miseria. It’s founder was Fr. Carlos Mujica. He was the first priest murdered. They shot him as he left the church after conducting a funeral. Anyone working with the poor was suspect. There were no trials. They just killed you.

MD: Can you tell me what happened to you?

JM: I was working with a pastoral team that ministered to Bolivian migrants who worked in the sugar mills north of Cordoba. Our work was impeded because the government was killing people. On my way back to Cordoba I stopped to visit the La Sallette seminarians. The situation was tense. Suddenly a group of policemen and military stormed into the house. They broke everything they could in the house and hog-tied the seminarians. Then before they took them away they put a gun to my head and told me to stay there for three hours. I was sure they would kill the seminarians.

MD: How did you escape?

JM: A priest helped me catch a plane from Cordoba to Buenos Aires.

He told me he found out that the seminarians were being held in a prison in Cordoba. I spoke to a U.S. embassy staff member who brought in the federal police to identify me, and they corroborated my story. I then went to the papal nunciature who sent me back to the U.S. embassy. They said they couldn’t help me but only recommend that I take a steamer to Uruguay. In Urugyay the embassy people said, “Get out of here because everything is connected (to Argentina.)” The Jesuits helped me get to Bolivia, and from there the Maryknoll nuns paid my way to Washington. I landed there with 10 cents to my name.

MD: And you did solidarity work for the next few years?

JM: Yes. I stayed at Tabor House in Washington and we did protests and lobbying until 1980. Then I went to Costa Rica where I worked with refugees from El Salvador. We helped them get to Panama so they could tell their stories.

Afterwords, I returned to California and worked with the San Francisco Archdiocese’s office of social justice and with the sanctuary movement that helped refugees from all over Latin America. In subsequent years I worked as a high school math teacher in Oregon.

MD: What happened to the La Sallette seminarians?

JM: When I got to Washington, Mercy Sister Betty Campbell and I contacted Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Drinan.

They pressured the Argentine government to release the five seminarians and Fr. Jim Weeks, an American priest, all of whom had been tortured in prison. They got visas to come to the U.S.

MD: What are your hopes for Pope Francis?

JM: I would say his job is to clean up and to decentralize the church. I don’t think at his age he’ll be able to do much more. He’ll appoint bishops who will be more open. And hopefully there will be another Vatican council. If he can do that before he retires, then the church can move forward.

Mark Day is a journalist and filmmaker. He livesin Vista, Calif. Mday700@yahoo.com