Argentine Priest Bears Heavy Cross: ‘Dirty War’ : Townspeople Protest Against Ex-Police Chaplain Accused of Rights Violations

When a new parish priest arrived in this placid farming town 10 days ago, scores of people stood outside his church and shouted, “Murderer!”

The town council declared Father Christian von Wernich persona non grata. Trade unions and civic organizations castigated him. Families boycotted Mass or refused to let him baptize their babies.

And while Von Wernich was saying Mass on Saturday evening for about 150 worshipers inside Santa Rosa de Lima Church, more than 2,000 townspeople marched silently outside, demanding the priest’s ouster.

Linked to Rights Abuses

As a police chaplain, Von Wernich is accused of having been indirectly involved in, or at least not to have opposed, human rights abuses during military rule in Argentina from 1976 to 1983. At least 9,000 people were arrested and killed in the security services’ so-called dirty war against alleged leftist subversion during that time.

Von Wernich has been mentioned by name in several human rights complaints, including one involving a victim from Bragado.

News of his appointment on Nov. 13 opened old wounds that had begun to heal in the five years since the return of democratic rule. The debate has reverberated throughout the country and has provided an issue for human rights activists.

The uproar has threatened at times to overshadow the townspeople’s straightforward plea, expressed in a town council declaration read out when the march ended at the train station: “God wants this saddened people to be heard.”

In his Saturday sermon, Von Wernich made no reference to the march outside. He did ask for God’s help so that “the community might know who was right--the soldiers who asked for the Crucifixion of Jesus or He who gave his life for the others.”

Bragado, 150 miles west of Buenos Aires, is an unlikely setting for a defiant popular challenge of the representative of Argentina’s conservative Roman Catholic Church. Most of the 28,000 people live in tidy row-houses, prospering in businesses that live off the rich surrounding farmland that nestles against the town limits. Grain silos are taller than all but the local hotel and the church’s twin spires.

To describe Bragado as a sleepy place on a hot Saturday afternoon is to overstate the amount of activity.

In the first demonstration here that anyone can recall, several hundred people gathered spontaneously in the plaza on Nov. 17, the day Von Wernich arrived. Some shouted “ asesino! (murderer!”) The 16-member town council, which is evenly divided between the ruling Radical Civic Union, President Raul Alfonsin’s party, and the opposition Peronists, unanimously approved a motion calling on the local bishop to withdraw the priest.

When the church and Von Wernich himself ignored the appeal, and the papal nuncio, Bishop Ubaldo Calabresi declined to get involved, a public town assembly organized Saturday’s march. National newspapers began paying attention, and political figures intervened. In a few days, Bragado became the focus of debate on the laity’s role in Catholicism, the church involvement in the “dirty war” and Von Wernich’s past.

Reawakens Memories

“If the (military repression) itself was painful, it is just as painful now to relive those days,” said Eduardo Cesar Angione, mild-mannered vice president of the council and manager of a dairy cooperative in the town. “His presence reawakens the memories and hurts of those times. It is like throwing a wolf into the flock.”

Angione, along with the rest of the council and many residents, is convinced that, at the very least, Von Wernich provided succor to the repressors--especially in his role as confessor and confidant to Gen. Ramon Camps, a former police commander in the province of Buenos Aires who was one of the most notorious figures in the “dirty war.” Camps was sentenced to 25 years in prison for human rights abuses.

The 50-year-old priest has remained silent for the most part, refusing to speak with reporters and rejecting calls that he resign. In discussions with the town council, he has denied any knowledge or involvement in killings, torture or disappearances during military rule.

Never Charged

The church hierarchy so far has stood behind him, noting he was never charged with any crime nor accused of ecclesiastical errors. However, some clerics have spoken out against him and have said the church cannot impose a repudiated pastor on a community. Like the town itself, the church is convulsed. His opponents hope for an audience with the bishop of the archdiocese to ask him to reconsider the appointment.

The priest, who was dismissed as Buenos Aires province police chaplain in 1983 with the return of democracy, has pointed out that those who are protesting don’t normally come to church. Although the vast majority of Argentines are nominally Catholic, Von Wernich noted that few practice their religion and said that those who do have not opposed him.

Yet practicing Catholics were among Saturday’s marchers, including entire families and elderly people.

“We have a priest who was a collaborator,” said Maria Nese de Fernandez, a middle-age woman who joined the 14-block walk. “Now it appears they want to use him as a wedge, to let those evil days flower again.”

Many local people remember Cecilia Idiart, a 23-year-old university student from Bragado who disappeared in 1976. Von Wernich, who regularly visited detainees, had assured the family that the young woman was well. She has not been seen since.

Council member Angione said that six youths from the town disappeared in all and that fear took hold of every parent with children in college. Bragado, founded in the mid-1800s, is a town “where everyone knows everyone, and the problems of one are shared by all. So the anguish was very generalized. Even now, the feelings are very strong.”

The council statement Saturday noted, “The community of Bragado is not confronting the wise and ancient church, but rather one of its members who, by omission or commission, has lost his good name in the dark years of repression.”

Tomas San Martin, a Christian Democratic Party councilor from a nearby town who joined the march, said the Von Wernich conflict involves the Argentine church’s reluctance to broaden the role of its laity. “At play here is whether the lay people have any say in their church,” he said. “The church cannot ignore this expression.”

The march also highlighted lingering divisions in Argentine society between those who accept Alfonsin’s decision to curtail the number of prosecutions of human rights abusers and those who want more trials.

The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, wearing white kerchiefs embroidered with the names of their missing children, came from the nation’s capital of Buenos Aires to join the rally. During military rule, the mothers’ marches on behalf of the missing served as a constant symbol of resistance. Now they are divided between the political militants who came to Bragado and those who favor a lower-key approach.

About 30 mothers, joined by some left-wing political militants from Buenos Aires, insisted on chanting and clapping at some points during the march, despite hisses and appeals for silence from Bragado citizens.

To some Bragado people, such visitors jeopardized the dignity of the event and even the support of moderates, by portraying the dispute as the public against the church rather than churchgoers against a church official accused of errors.

Fear of Many

Council member Maria Theresa Barriochoa looked over her shoulder during the march toward the noisy protesters and said: “With that attitude, we have never achieved anything in Argentina, especially with the church. The people understand very well what Von Wernich represents, but many fear those people marching behind us now.”

The town council has implied that the population is united in opposing Von Wernich, yet some residents made clear that the inhabitants are divided.

A 34-year-old schoolteacher named Mirta said that Argentina is engulfed in hunger, economic problems and corruption, “but the people don’t demonstrate against that. Why are we wasting time with this? I can’t believe it anyway. He is a man of God, how could he do such terrible things?”