Posted on 03/14/2013 4:46:16 PM PDT by raptor22
Religion: The change that swept Eastern Europe in the 1980s and fueled the collapse of the Soviet Union may find itself repeated by a new pope with similar disdain for the authoritarian governments of his region.
When Cardinal Karol Wojtyla stepped out on the balcony of St. Peter's in 1978 as Pope John Paul II, Soviet communism still stood astride Eastern Europe and his native Poland.
He would be the moral force helping to lead half a continent out of the human bondage of totalitarianism.
Argentina's 76-year-old Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis I, is no stranger to — or compromiser with — the oppression of authoritarian government.
During his tenure as Archbishop of Buenos Aires and head of Argentina's Conference of Bishops, the new pope had a strained relationship with the governments of President Cristina Kirchner and her late husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, who once called Bergoglio "a real spokesman for the opposition."
The cardinal who eschewed limousines to ride his bicycle or take the bus, is known as a man of the poor and of the people.
He gained admiration for living in a modest apartment instead of the palace in Buenos Aires that was adjacent to the Casa Rosada where the president resides (and where Juan and Evita Peron often harangued the Argentine people).
The new pope has fought a long battle in Argentina against leftist government, Peronist anticlericalism, the spread of evangelical Protestantism and the secular temptations of modern society.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Unfortunately, the new Pope will not have as a philosophical partner in the realm of earthly politics a U. S. president of the caliber of Ronaldus Magnus.
Interesting thought on combating Communism in this hemisphere.
Too bad we don’t have the equivalent of Reagan and Thatcher to help...
You mean too bad we don’t have a Reagan to lead the free world and the American military and NATO and to fight the Soviet Union globally with mercenaries and Special forces and American supplied guerrilla movements, to conquer Grenada and force the Soviets to turn back in Nicaragua and to be able to put his long term strategy into effect by being elected twice as the most powerful man on earth, not to “help”.
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I wasn’t slighting Reagan.
I was referring to communism in the Southern Hemisphere. John Paul II was key in the east, Poland got it rolling. The corollary is Pope Francis in the south.
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