International News

Future Pope Helped Save Argentine Dissidents

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – While a military-backed dictatorship in Argentina was conducting a clandestine war on suspected dissidents, then-Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future pope, masterminded a secret strategy to save those being targeted, according to a new book.

Titled “Bergoglio’s List: Those Saved by Pope Francis; Stories Never Told,” the book also includes the transcript of the then-cardinal’s testimony during a nearly four-hour court interrogation in 2010. A panel of judges was investigating suspected human rights violations committed during the 1976 to 1983 dictatorship.

The future pope was head of the Jesuit province in the country from 1973 to 1979, the height of the clandestine war, which saw as many as 30,000 Argentines kidnapped, tortured, murdered or disappeared, never to be seen again.

The book, currently only in Italian, is to be released Oct. 1.