(ANSA) - Buenos Aires, November 7 - Human rights activist
Estela de Carlotto on Friday admitted she had been wrong about
Pope Francis' role during the Argentine dictatorship of
1976-1983.
"I was wrong about Pope Francis," said De Carlotto after
being received by the pontiff at the Vatican last Wednesday.
"I'm not asking for forgiveness, because I was misinformed
by what I thought were credible sources," she said.
When the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope
Francis, De Carlotto reportedly said: "Bergoglio belongs to that
part of the Church which has cast a shadow over Argentina".
De Carlotto, whose pregnant daughter in 1977 was abducted,
tortured and murdered by the dictatorship, is the founder of
Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo).
While the dictatorship also kidnapped, tortured and
murdered several Catholic nuns and Jesuit priests, the Catholic
hierarchy was seen at the time as indifferent to, if not
outright complicit in, the military repression against leftist
dissidents.
Argentina in 2007 convicted Catholic priest Christian
Federico von Wernich of torture and murder, sentencing him to
life in prison for crimes committed while he was chaplain of the
Buenos Aires Province Police during the dictatorship.
Estela de Carlotto says she was 'wrong' about Pope Francis
Argentine human rights activist says she was 'misinformed'