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New pope's homeland devout, divided

Gary Stern, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News
Faithful kneel in prayer at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina on March 14. Latin Americans reacted with joy on Wednesday at news that Pope Francis, Argentina's former cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, had become the first pope ever from the Americas.
  • Many Argentines practice faith through family%2C local traditions rather than parishes
  • Observers say there is still great distrust of the clergy
  • As archbishop%2C Francis led a flock that was increasingly liberal

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- American Catholics may believe that their community is divided among ideological and political factions, but the Argentine Catholic community that birthed Pope Francis is truly hard to comprehend or succinctly describe.

About 90 percent of Argentines are Catholic, but only a quarter go to Mass. Few Argentines get a formal church education, but many learn from family tradition to love certain saints and cherish local processions. Bus travelers make the sign of the cross when passing churches, but many Argentines dismiss the church's fervid opposition to gay marriage.

If American Catholics are still reeling from years of sex-abuse revelations, many Argentine Catholics remain traumatized by their church's connection to an infamous military dictatorship that killed and "disappeared" thousands between 1976 and 1983, a period known as the "Dirty War."

"That time was a disgrace," said Monica Roda, 61, of Yorktown, N.Y., who grew up in northern Argentina and moved to the U.S. in 1990 as a teacher then in her late 30s. "You would watch TV and see the priests close to the dictators. They were fine with it. Not all, of course. Some spoke out for the people and were killed. But the church went along with it and many people separated themselves from the church."

Pope Francis, previously Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was born in Buenos Aires and was ordained a priest in 1969. The Jesuit became archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998. Some have tried to tie him to the dictatorship, particularly the kidnapping of two priests in 1976, but Bergoglio was cleared by human rights groups. Adolfo Perez Esquivel, an Argentine pacifist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, told the BBC on Thursday that Bergoglio had "no links with the dictatorship."

Still, Bergoglio had to help heal the Catholic community, giving him perhaps unique experience to deal with the church's global challenges. As archbishop, he led a flock that was fractured, suspicious and increasingly liberal, although still tied to its Catholic heritage and symbols.

"The church in Argentina went through a major trauma," said Ramon Luzarraga, a theologian-in-residence at the University of Dayton and an expert on the Catholic Church's relationship with Latin American governments. "The military government, which overthrew Isabel Peron in 1976, targeted anyone who held a contrary view. The church was divided. You could have a Catholic cleric captured and sent to a torture facility, which would have priests there to pass information to the intelligence services."

As many as 30,000 people disappeared. Luzarraga said that Bergoglio later had to oversee an archdiocese that included victims, survivors and perpetrators.

"He made acts of contrition and allowed priests to be prosecuted," Luzarraga said. "He restored some trust in a church whose credibility was shot."

It was -- and remains -- a church deeply imbedded in the national identity and consciousness. Until 1994, the president and vice president were required to be Catholic.

But Catholics there are anything but uniform in their approach to religion. Many practice their faith through family and local traditions rather than through parishes. People are more traditional outside of the cities. The children of Argentina's many immigrants also add the flavorings of Italy, Ireland and their parents' other home countries.

Fabiana DesRosiers, 44, of Scarsdale, director of the Division of Social Sciences at Dominican College in Orangeburg, grew up spending her summers with family near Buenos Aires and now takes her children there. She said there are churches everywhere, but people learn values and beliefs largely from family.

"They rely on the saints," she said. "Everyone is praying to a saint for this or that. In my family every home has a statue of St. Cajetan, patron saint of the workers. On Aug. 7, my whole family would do a pilgrimage to his church.

"The people are a lot like us, a melting pot, a mixed bag, morally or religiously," she said. "You have your anti-homosexuals and pro-homosexuals, your anti-abortions your pro-abortions. But Catholicism is the culture. If you're on a bus driving by these churches, almost everyone makes the sign of the cross."

Veronica Diaz, 47, of Nyack, who grew up in Buenos Aires and is there this week, wrote in an email that there is still great distrust of the clergy because of the Dirty War years. But most Argentines, even if they support gay marriage or unmarried couples living together, do not feel they have to break from the Catholic Church, she wrote.

"These groups for some reason do not feel the need -- for the most part -- to denounce their Catholicism in order to serve their personal ways of living," she wrote. "Their counterparts in the U.S. feel disenfranchised or marginalized by the church. Here ... people do not feel that they must detach themselves from their beliefs."

Allie McCarthy, 25, was a student at Georgetown University when she went to Buenos Aires in 2008 to help research public displays of religion. She learned that Argentines are quite comfortable mixing their love of saints with very open displays of affection, sultry Tango dancing and extravagant meals.

"You have this sort of decadence in the culture," the Boston native said. "It is a striking juxtaposition to the Catholicism engrained in their lives. A lot of businesses have little cards of saints next to their cash registers, but people don't talk about their faith. A lot of people felt removed from the church, but they pass their identity from generation to generation."

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