NEW POPE ELECTED; GAYS STILL SUBHUMAN IN CHURCH'S EYES
(updated: guilty of human rights abuses?)

Yeah, there's a new pope -- Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, who'll be called Pope Francis I. What I'm reading about him is a mixed bag:

Stories of his humility abound. When he was appointed a cardinal in 2001, Cardinal Bergoglio persuaded hundreds of Argentines not to fly to Rome to celebrate with him but rather to donate to the poor the money they had raised for their airline tickets.

He declined to move into the luxurious archbishop's residence, preferring a simple apartment nearby where he lives with an old bishop and usually cooks dinner.

He gets around town mostly by bus, often wearing the cassock of a simple priest rather than any episcopal finery.

In 2000, as John Paul apologised for the Church's sins down the centuries, Cardinal Bergoglio had clergy wear garments of penance for sins committed during Argentina's military dictatorship. [But see the update below.]

In contrast to many activist Latin American priests, Cardinal Bergoglio prefers to stress the spiritual side of his calling and urge the faithful to follow Christ's example more fully rather than preach about the need for social justice.

He's criticized priests who won't baptize children born out of wedlock, which seems admirable.

And there's this:

He has affirmed church teaching on homosexuality, though he teaches the importance of respecting individuals who are gay. His doctrinal conservatism is tempered with compassion: he is well remembered for his 2001 visit to a hospice, in which he washed and kissed the feet of twelve AIDS patients.

But he didn't mince words when Argentina began pursuing legalization of gay marriage:

... the bill [is] "a plan to destroy God's plan," in the words of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires. "This is no mere legislative bill. It is a move by the father of lies to confuse and deceive the children of God," Bergoglio declared last week as the legislative debate approached its climax.

Also this:

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio not only called the new law "a scheme to destroy God's plan"; he termed it "a real and dire anthropological throwback," as if homosexuality were evolutionarily inferior to heterosexuality.

He's also called same-sex marriages "caricatures of families that have neither a future themselves nor the ability to create a future society."

Abortion? Pretty much what you'd expect:

In a speech given to a gathering of priests and laity on October 2nd, the cardinal pointed out that people say that "we aren't in agreement with the death penalty," but "in Argentina we have the death penalty. A child conceived by the rape of a mentally ill or retarded woman can be condemned to death."

So, yeah, nothing's changing at the Vatican.

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UPDATE: But there's also this, which, if accurate, is appalling:

Bergoglio was the head of the Jesuits in Argentina during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983, during which the military murdered upwards of 30,000 people (as well as kidnapping hundreds of children whose parents the regime had tortured and murdered). Unlike Catholic officials in neighboring Chile and Brazil, where priests, bishops, and even cardinals spoke out against and defended victims of human rights abuses, in Argentina, the Catholic Church was openly complicit in the military regime's repression. Bergoglio was not exempt from this involvement: military officers have testified Bergoglio helped the Argentine military regime hide political prisoners when human rights activists visited the country. And Bergoglio himself had to testify regarding the kidnapping of two priests who he stripped of their religious licenses shortly before they were kidnapped and tortured. This isn't just a case of Bergoglio being a member of an institution that supported a brutal regime; it's a case of Bergoglio himself having ties, direct and indirect, to that very regime.

More here. (Hat tip: Taylor Marsh.)

On the other hand, Wonkblog's Dylan Matthews says the Argentinean church under the future pope opposed government austerity at the end of the last century and beginning of this one. So there's that.

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UPDATE: Right-winger makes a funny.

That lefties are accusing the new pope of handing over lefties to the right wing junta for execution makes me adore the new pope.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) March 13, 2013

There are no words.

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UPDATE: Josh Marshall has the new pope's version of what happened, via AP.