Pope ‘not complicit’ with Argentine regime–Nobel laureate

Pope Francis is received like a rock star by tens of thousands as he’s driven in his popemobile at St. Peter’s Square before his inaugural Mass. AP FILE PHOTO

ROME — Pope Francis was “not complicit” with Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship and pursued a “silent diplomacy,” Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel said on Thursday after meeting with Latin America’s first pontiff.

“He was not complicit with the dictatorship, he did not collaborate,” Perez Esquivel told reporters, following criticism of the pope for not speaking out against the 1976-1983 regime when he was head of the Jesuit order in Argentina.

“He preferred a silent diplomacy,” said Perez Esquivel, a prominent human rights activist who campaigned against the Argentinian junta.

“The pope had nothing to do with the dictatorship,” he said.

Perez Esquivel said there was “no proof” of any link with the dictatorship.

The Nobeal laureate said he and the pope discussed human rights and that the pontiff had called for “truth, justice and compensation”.