Flashback: "Fury of the Falkland's Heroes Over New Pope"

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"Go kiss that land that is ours!"

The above quote and others like it can be found if you Google "Bergoglio Malvinas".

This is a follow-up to the recent post on the Pope posing with a "Dialogue for Malvinas" t-shirt.

On this issue, the Franboys were in full swing, saying the Pope was "surprised" or "tricked" or "just being polite" or whatever. But the evidence for the Pope's nationalist pro-war sympathies (from when he was Archbishop Bergoglio) is incontrovertible. A few responses are possible:

1. Bergoglio wasn't actually in favor of war. It's true (as far as I know) that the then Archbishop wasn't standing at the docks yelling "Shoot the gringos!" But no priest would do that. In his subsequent comments and homilies he was as pro-war as any priest could be. Note that there is no evidence that he ever criticized the Argentinian attack. And while he appears to now be in favor of "dialogue", that's the current nationalist line. Preach dialogue. When that doesn't work, attack. After you get your butt kicked (and close to a thousand young men are killed) and it's clear you're militarily weaker and won't succeed through force, preach dialogue again.
2. Bergoglio is Argentinian. What do you expect? He's a priest and I expect him to act as a priest. Pope Benedict didn't endorse the Nazi's aggression and Pope Jon Paul II didn't endorse the policies of the Polish government. Indeed, he opposed them, and was one of the primary actors that helped bring down the communist regime.
3. But he's so clearly in favor of peace now. He's even against weapons in general. Well that's sort of my point. Pope Francis is a hypocrite. Or rather he's a consistent Latin American populist. War is a capitalist plot, unless it's a war of liberation against colonialist oppressors.
4. Shut up you Islamophobe traditionalist. Everything you're saying must be BS (see this minor Reddit  exchange). In a sense, that's the best response, since it cannot be countered with argument or logic. Someone making that response has shown that they are immune to such bourgeois fripperies.

I should also note that while the Pope has become known for being egalitarian in citing the sufferings of all--whatever their race, nationality or religion (as an example, consider his remarks on the current European immigration crisis)--in his many comments and homilies on the "Malvinas", to my knowledge he always extensively referenced the Argentinian war dead, but never the British war dead. Again, look up the homilies. The British victims don't count.

That's so weird.

Or rather, it's not weird at all. These days Bergoglio is trying to say pleasing things to the secular world media. In those days he was trying to say pleasing things to Argentinian popular opinion and the Argentinian government.

Bergoglio is a fake.

This blog post references the headline from a British newspaper article published a bit more than two years ago. Here's part of the original article from the Daily Mail:

Fury of the Falklands heroes over new Pope: He believes 'the Malvinas' belong to Argentina, and its president hopes he will support her case

• Pope Francis calls Falkland Islands 'Argentine soil' 
• General Sir Hew Pike said new pontiff does not observe islander's rights
• Argentina's president Kirchner hopes Francis will help her claim to islands

By NEIL SEARS FOR THE DAILY MAIL and HANNAH ROBERTS

PUBLISHED: 18:31 EST, 14 March 2013 | UPDATED: 03:36 EST, 15 March 2013

Falklands veterans told of their dismay last night after the Argentine president hinted she hoped the new Pope – her countryman – would mediate in the dispute surrounding the territory. 

Pope Francis believes the South Atlantic islands are ‘Argentine soil’. 

In 2010 the then Buenos Aires Cardinal declared: ‘The Malvinas are ours’, and last year he accused Britain of ‘usurping’ the islands. 

Firebrand Argentine president Cristina Kirchner, who has for months been seeking easy home popularity by calling for Britain to enter talks on withdrawing from the Falklands, has leapt on the promotion of her fellow Argentine to the papacy to boost her case. 

In a televised address yesterday she pointedly said she hoped the new Pope would ‘take a message to the major world powers that they need to participate in dialogue’. 

The controversy was stoked up only days after the islanders voted almost unanimously to retain their ties to London. 

Last night retired Lieutenant General Sir Hew Pike, who commanded 3 Para in the 1982 conflict, said the newly elected leader of the Catholic Church seemed not to recognise the Falkland islanders’ right to self-determination. 

Sir Hew, 69, said the Pope’s statements about the Falklands gave no recognition of the islanders’ wish to remain British. 

Sir Hew said: ‘It saddens me that a man of the Pope’s stature does not seem to respect the rights of a group of people to self-determination. 

‘We went to war on the basis of that principle of self-determination, for that small community of people in the Falklands, and that’s the point. 

One would have thought a priest should respect that.' 

Newly-elected Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, claims 'Las Malvinas' belong to Argentina and called Britain 'usurpers' 

‘Communities large or small are equally important in this world, but it seems that people like him don’t recognise that. I profoundly disagree with the Pope’s stance. 

‘I think when Popes get involved in politics that’s probably not very helpful.’ 

Major General Malcolm Hunt, who commanded 40 Commando Royal Marines, suggested the Argentine pontiff should take a more diplomatic stance after his elevation. 

Referring to his stated belief that the islands belong to Argentina, General Hunt said: ‘It is not ideal, it doesn’t help, and it certainly suits Madame Kirchner to have these things said by such a person. 

‘He’ll no doubt say something more diplomatic now he’s Pope. 

‘But certainly I would have thought that a man of faith would have been in favour of everybody, wherever they are, having some say about their own life and future.’

Pope Francis is Against War Unless It's War Initiated by Fascist Generals Attacking Peaceful Islanders by Surprise In Order to Play Into Nationalistic Prejudices

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Yesterday, the Pope posed with a "Dialogue for Malvinas" propaganda sign. The "Dialogue" movement is the latest attempt by anti-democratic South American nationalists to annex the Falkland Islands.

A Vatican spokesman said that nothing should be read into the gesture. The Pope gets handed things all the time by people, etc. etc.

Which of course we already knew – anti-fracking t-shirts, communist crucifixes...

But the incident reminded some of the Pope's well-known support for the Argentinian side in the Falkland's debate and his implicit endorsement of the war.

A year before he became Pope, at a Mass in Buenos Aires for the 30th anniversary of the Falkland's War, Archbishop Bergoglio told worshippers:

We come to pray for all who have fallen, sons of the homeland who went out to defend their mother, the homeland, and to reclaim what is theirs, that is of the homeland, and it was usurped.

In March of 2013, the Falkland Islands held a referendum on whether the inhabitants wished to remain a British territory. 1,513 out of 1,516 voted Yes.

Against that, Prime Minister David Cameron was asked what he thought of the newly elected Pope's views on the Falklands.

I don't agree with him - respectfully, obviously. 

There was a pretty extraordinarily clear referendum in the Falkland Islands and I think that is a message to everyone in the world that the people of these islands have chosen very clearly the future they want and that choice should be respected by everyone.

He then said the funniest thing this blogger is aware of Cameron ever saying:

As it were, the white smoke over the Falklands was pretty clear.

The Pope's words at the homily above, make interesting reading next to his more well-known statements about war, such as that it's a plot by weapons manufacturers or the natural result of international capitalism run amok:

We are discarding an entire generation to maintain an economic system that can't hold up any more, a system that to survive, must make war, as all great empires have done. But as a third world war can't be waged, they make regional wars...they produce and sell weapons, and with this, the balance sheets of the idolatrous economies, the great world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money, are resolved...

The Pope has more recently said that war should be "forever rejected" and that it "never solves anything".

So he's against war unless it's war initiated by fascist generals attacking peaceful islanders by surprise in order to play Into nationalistic prejudices.

And please don't say he wasn't endorsing the Argentine attack: "sons of the homeland...defend their mother...reclaim what is theirs...it was usurped." That's the jingoist vocabulary that led to that short but nasty conflict that involved the deaths of close to a thousand human beings. Here's one of them:

Paratrooper Craig Jones was the last British soldier killed.

And he wasn't killed by capitalists.