Pope Francis. What we know. And "The Silence."

Jorge Bergoglio, now known as Pope Francis, has two main qualities that could work in his favour as he seeks to unite the Catholic Church. He is a man of intense humility, and he is free from any whiff of the ecclesiastical scandals that have dominated the headlines in recent times.

“He has a sincere vocation without being a populist for the poor,” José Octavio Bordón, a former Argentine ambassador to the US who has known the new Pope for more than 30 years, told the Financial Times. “He is a Pope with sandals on.”

A Jesuit intellectual, he is known for his compassion and practicality as well as for sitting in the back row at church events, travelling by bus, visiting slums and speaking out against poverty.

Despite being a conservative – he was a fierce opponent of gay marriage, which was legalised in Argentina in 2010, for example – he is also credited with having modernised the Argentine church.

His elevation to cardinal came in 2001, the year Argentina crashed to default on almost $100bn, but he persuaded his followers not to accompany him to Rome and to donate the air fare to charity instead.

However, Pope Francis does have some history with which to contend. A court recently attacked the Argentine church’s “attitude of complicit silence” relating to the 1976-83 military dictatorship, in which 30,000 suspected leftists died or disappeared. Critics say the cleric was too cosy with the “junta”.

He had risen to become Argentina’s top Jesuit during the early years of the dictatorship and was alleged in “The Silence” - http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/03/breaking-silence-catholic-church-in.html - by the prominent journalist Horacio Verbitsky - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horacio_Verbitsky - to have withdrawn the protection of his order for two Jesuit priests who were subsequently kidnapped for their work in poor neighbourhoods.

In 2010 he gave more than four hours of evidence in a trial into crimes relating to the country’s “Dirty War”, but said he had met junta members to plead for the release of the abducted priests. His supporters deny allegations he was complicit with the military and say he in fact helped many escape persecution.

Seeming relaxed, with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get attitude, in his first appearance before the faithful in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis kicked off his papacy with a joke: the cardinals had gone to the “ends of the earth” to select him, he smiled. Ending his message, he said casually: “See you soon”.

In contrast to the arcane ritual surrounding his election, the @pontifex Twitter account, which had been deactivated by the Vatican after his predecessor’s retirement, sent a tweet heralding his arrival in capital letters: “HABEMUS PAPAM FRANCISCUM”.

The new Pope, who has kept a determinedly low profile, will now swap an austere apartment for the grandeur of the Vatican.

A proud porteño, as residents of Buenos Aires are known, he likes to sip Argentines’ traditional bitter herb drink, mate, supports San Lorenzo football club, and is a fan of the Argentine writers José Luis Borges and Leopoldo Marechal.

His father, an Italian railway worker, taught him to “greet everyone on your way up. They’re the same people you meet on your way down”. His mother was a housewife and he is one of seven children.

Cristina Fernández, Argentina’s president, sent a dry letter of congratulations to her compatriot after a tense relationship with the cleric who has not been afraid to criticise the government.

Her late husband, former president Néstor Kirchner, once said pointedly: “God belongs to us all but the devil reaches us all, too, those of us who wear trousers and those who wear cassocks.”

Among his criticisms, Cardinal Bergoglio has attacked the increasing climate of political confrontation in Argentina – “the worst risk is to homogenise thought” – and berated the government for doing too little for the poor.

But he brings charisma and negotiating skills to his new job. Mr Bordón said Pope Francis cultivated diverse links with politicians, business and social leaders and was “very respectful of differences”.

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Pope Francis: questions remain over his role during Argentina's dictatorship

Jorge Bergoglio was head of the Jesuit order in the 1970s when the church backed military government and called for patriotism

• Uki Goni and Jonathan Watts
• The Guardian, 13 March 2013

Argentina's cardinal Jorge Bergoglio greets followers outside the San Cayetano church in Buenos Aires in 2009. Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/AP

Despite the joyful celebrations outside the Municipal Cathedral in Buenos Aires yesterday, the news of Latin America's first pope was clouded by lingering concerns about the role of the church – and its new head – during Argentina's brutal military dictatorship.

The Catholic church and Pope Francis have been accused of a complicit silence and worse during the "dirty war" of murders and abductions carried out by the junta that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.

The evidence is sketchy and contested. Documents have been destroyed and many of those who were victims or perpetrators have died in the years that followed. The moral argument is clear, but the reality of life at that time put many people in a grey position. It was dangerous at that time to speak out and risk being labelled a subversive. But many, including priests and bishops, did so and subsequently disappeared. Those who stayed silent have subsequently had to live with their consciences — and sometimes the risk of a trial.

Its behaviour during that dark period in Argentine history was so unsaintly that in 2000 the Argentine Catholic church itself made a public apology for its failure to take a stand against the generals. "We want to confess before God everything we have done badly," Argentina's Episcopal Conference said at that time.

In February, a court noted during the sentencing of three former military men to life imprisonment for the killings of two priests that the church hierarchy had "closed its eyes" to the killing of progressive priests.

As head of the Jesuit order from 1973 to 1979, Jorge Bergoglio – as the new pope was known until yesterday – was a member of the hierarachy during the period when the wider Catholic church backed the military government and called for their followers to be patriotic.

Bergoglio twice refused to testify in court about his role as head of the Jesuit order. When he eventually appeared in front of a judge in 2010, he was accused by lawyers of being evasive.

The main charge against Bergoglio involves the kidnapping of two Jesuit priests, Orland Yorio and Francisco Jalics, who were taken by Navy officers in May 1976 and held under inhumane conditions for the missionary work they conducted in the country's slums, a politically risky activity at the time.

His chief accuser is journalist Horacio Verbitsky, the author of a book on the church called "El Silencio" ("The Silence"), which claims that Bergoglio withdrew his order's protection from the two priests, effectively giving the military a green light for their abduction.

The claims are based on conversations with Jalics, who was released after his ordeal and later moved to a German monastery.

Bergoglio has called the allegations "slander" and holds that, on the contrary, he moved behind the scenes to save the lives of the two priests and others that he secretly hid from the death squads. In one case, he claims he even gave his identity papers to one dissident who looked like him so that he could flee the country.

For some, that makes him a hero. Other are sceptical. Eduardo de la Serna, co-ordinator of a left-wing group of priests who focus on the plight of the poor, told Radio del Plate that: "Bergoglio is a man of power and he knows how position himself among powerful people. I still have many doubts about his role regarding the Jesuits who went missing under the dictatorship."

Many in the church are keen to move on from that dark period in the history of Argentina and the church. They say the new pope helped to heal the wounds of the dirty war and to restore the credibility of the Catholic hierarchy.

"As archbishop, he faced a monumental task, and he was even accused of collaboration with the dirty war, which he strenuously denied and was ultimately cleared. If he can restore the credibility of the church there [in Argentina], he can handle the scandals that have befallen the church worldwide because he knows how to connect to the people" said Ramon Luzarraga, theologian-in-residence at the University of Dayton.

But the issue is unlikely to go away any time soon, particularly while high-profile trials are still taking place. This week a Buenos Aires court sentenced the "Last Dictator" Reynaldo Bignone to life in jail for crimes relating to the disappearance of 23 people, including two pregnant women, when he was in power in the 1980s.