On Bergoglio’s birthday, lightning strikes a statue of St. Peter in Argentina
The statue before and after the lightning strike. Fair use.
On December 17th, 2023, Bergoglio’s birthday, a lightning bolt struck a statue of St. Peter of the famous Our Lady of the Rosary (Nuestra Señora del Rosario) church in San Nicolás in Argentina. The stone statue had a metal halo and a metal key in his right hand. The lightning strike vaporized the halo and the key and burnt the right hand, while the rest of the statue remained intact. The lightning struck the statue in spite of a lightning rod on the building.
Here is an article from the ACN news agency (Spanish), and an X post with additional photographs by the Lepanto Institute.
Cardinal Bergoglio and the Falklands war
On November 19, 2015, Bergoglio said in his sermon in the Santa Marta chapel: “The men who work war, who make war, are cursed, they are criminals. A war can be justified – so to speak – with many, many reasons, but when all the world as it is today, at war – piecemeal though that war may be – a little here, a little there, and everywhere – there is no justification – and God weeps. Jesus weeps.” (here)
The author of the Rorate Caeli blog points out that by using the phrase “so to speak”, Bergoglio is insinuating that war can never be justified, clearly contradicting the just war doctrine that the Church has held since time immemorial and which is based on the natural law.
What many people don’t know however, is that Bergoglio didn’t always speak like this. On April 2, 2012, on the 30th anniversary of the end of the Falklands War, Bergoglio said this in a memorial service: “[W]e come to pray for those who have fallen, sons and daughters of the Homeland who went out to defend their mother, the Homeland, to reclaim what belongs to the Homeland and was taken from them.” (here)
For historical context, the Falkland Islands belong to the United Kingdom. They were once a Spanish colony. Argentina claims the islands since 1816, but never actually controlled it. In 1982, the military dictatorship launched an attack to capture the islands, but were driven back by the British Navy.
Argentinian soldiers on the Falkland Islands in 1982 during the war. CC0 on Wikimedia, here
The Bargalló-scandal
Note: scandalous images in the links!
Fernando María Bargalló was the bishop of the Argentinian diocese of Merlo-Moreno from the establishment of the diocese in 1997 until 2012 and also the president of Caritas Latin America. He resigned after pictures became public, which showed him on the beach of a luxury resort in Mexico, embracing a woman in the sea. According to the sources who took the photo, the woman was a food entrepreneur, who owned restaurants in Buenos Aires. (link)
Bargalló at first denied knowing the woman, then claimed that they were childhood friends. He later sent his resignation to the Vatican, which they accepted.
What makes things worse is that Bargalló was the priest who celebrated the marriage of the woman to her ex-husband and also the one who baptized their three children. (here)
After the bishop has already resigned, Cardinal Bergoglio celebrated a mass in the cathedral of the diocese of Merlo-Moreno for the 15th anniversary of the founding of that diocese. During the Mass, he said about Bargalló: “He worked for the poor and this earned him persecution. He also worked for the elderly and strove to listen to the children. Today we have a united, humanitarian and missionary church and we come to give thanks for these 15 years of walking together.” (here)
The newspaper “La Nación” added: “A man shouted ‘Long live Fernando María Bargalló!’ from the back of the church and the mass ended with a loud and sustained applause from all.” (here)
Bargalló in 2011. Image taken by Tanatos02 on Wikimedia here, under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.
Tucho’s standards
The new “prefect” of the “Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith”, Víctor Manuel “Tucho” Fernández is infamous for his book “Heal me with your mouth: The art of kissing”. However, he has also been notorious for his vulgar style.
Shortly after Bergoglio’s election, after he was already appointed a bishop by him, Tucho wrote an article for the Argentinian theological magazine “Vida Pastoral” with the title “Bergoglio: a secas” (“Bergoglio, plain and simple”) In it, under a heading called “Let’s stop f***ing around”, he goes on a tirade against critics of Bergoglio. He thinks they shouldn’t bother looking into Bergoglio’s past: “Let’s stop f***ing around. We can search for the hair in the milk, and we’re going to find it.” He added that “Bergoglio didn’t shit on anyone”.
In a 2023 interview with the Argentian newpaper “La Nación”, he claimed that someone who thinks that Fiducia Supplicans approved of same-sex “marriage” “hasn’t read the document or tiene mala leche”. In Spain, the expression he used means “be in a bad mood”, but in Argentina, it is a vulgar expression for an evil person.
Another incident happened in December of 2023, when Tucho visited his home town of Alcira Gigena for Christmas. During one of his sermons, he has called his own home town a “village of shit” (pueblo de mierda). (Youtube video here)
Image of Fernández by Romanuspontifex on Wikimedia here, CC-BY-SA 3.0
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