RedStarOverChina
13th October 2007, 00:30
New York Times Article (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E0DA103AF935A15757C0A9629C8B 63)
Originally posted by New York Times
The parishioners in the coastal village in Chile knew their priest simply as the Rev. Christián González. Only his accent gave away that he was an Argentine.
So it came as a shock to them when he traveled back to Argentina last year and had to face charges here for crimes dating to the military dictatorship of the 1970's. Under his real name, Christián von Wernich, he is accused of 19 counts of murder and 33 of abduction and torture.
...
After they had been subjected to days of intense torture, the prisoners recounted, Father von Wernich would appear offering spiritual consolation. But at the same time he would seek information and urge detainees to ''get right with God'' by acknowledging their political activities and by identifying comrades still at large.
''Once I heard Christian von Wernich reply to a prisoner who pleaded with him not to die that 'the life of men depends on God and your collaboration,''' a former prisoner, Luis Velasco, testified at a court hearing. ''I also heard him defend and justify torture, recognizing that at times he had been present. When he referred to an operation, he would say, 'When we did that operation....'''
The most serious of the accusations against Father von Wernich stem from the execution in 1977 of seven young people, all political prisoners who belonged to left-wing groups. The killings, it is now charged, were part of a police plan to extort money from the prisoners' parents, by suggesting that a bribe would free their children.
Figuring that a priest would naturally inspire trust, agents sent Father von Wernich to collect $1,500 from the parents of each of the prisoners. As proof that they were still alive, he delivered letters written by the detainees. Once the money was collected, the prisoners were taken from a clandestine detention center and killed. One was pregnant.
...
Afterward, those involved, including Father von Wernich, went to a celebratory barbecue ''where we also changed our clothes because they were stained with blood,'' Mr. Emmed said. Seeing that Mr. Emmed was distraught at what they had just done, Father von Wernich sought to console him.
''What you have done was necessary for the good of the fatherland,'' Mr. Emmed said the priest had told him. ''You have no reason to feel badly. You carried out a patriotic act, and God knows that what we are doing is for the benefit of the country.''
...
From his jail cell, Father von Wernich is fighting the charges against him and has asked judges to free him from what he claims is an ''illegal detention.''
At a hearing, the priest acknowledged that he had been a regular visitor at the clandestine detention centers of the police, but he refused to provide details of his conversations with prisoners. To do so, he said, would be a breach of his holy orders, because it would ''violate the secrecy of the confessional.''
I think we should all write letters to the Vatican and apologize for making them slaughter us.
Maybe then the religious will like us?
Religion is and always will be against us!!! No more apologizing for religion I'm sick of it! :angry:
Originally posted by New York Times
The parishioners in the coastal village in Chile knew their priest simply as the Rev. Christián González. Only his accent gave away that he was an Argentine.
So it came as a shock to them when he traveled back to Argentina last year and had to face charges here for crimes dating to the military dictatorship of the 1970's. Under his real name, Christián von Wernich, he is accused of 19 counts of murder and 33 of abduction and torture.
...
After they had been subjected to days of intense torture, the prisoners recounted, Father von Wernich would appear offering spiritual consolation. But at the same time he would seek information and urge detainees to ''get right with God'' by acknowledging their political activities and by identifying comrades still at large.
''Once I heard Christian von Wernich reply to a prisoner who pleaded with him not to die that 'the life of men depends on God and your collaboration,''' a former prisoner, Luis Velasco, testified at a court hearing. ''I also heard him defend and justify torture, recognizing that at times he had been present. When he referred to an operation, he would say, 'When we did that operation....'''
The most serious of the accusations against Father von Wernich stem from the execution in 1977 of seven young people, all political prisoners who belonged to left-wing groups. The killings, it is now charged, were part of a police plan to extort money from the prisoners' parents, by suggesting that a bribe would free their children.
Figuring that a priest would naturally inspire trust, agents sent Father von Wernich to collect $1,500 from the parents of each of the prisoners. As proof that they were still alive, he delivered letters written by the detainees. Once the money was collected, the prisoners were taken from a clandestine detention center and killed. One was pregnant.
...
Afterward, those involved, including Father von Wernich, went to a celebratory barbecue ''where we also changed our clothes because they were stained with blood,'' Mr. Emmed said. Seeing that Mr. Emmed was distraught at what they had just done, Father von Wernich sought to console him.
''What you have done was necessary for the good of the fatherland,'' Mr. Emmed said the priest had told him. ''You have no reason to feel badly. You carried out a patriotic act, and God knows that what we are doing is for the benefit of the country.''
...
From his jail cell, Father von Wernich is fighting the charges against him and has asked judges to free him from what he claims is an ''illegal detention.''
At a hearing, the priest acknowledged that he had been a regular visitor at the clandestine detention centers of the police, but he refused to provide details of his conversations with prisoners. To do so, he said, would be a breach of his holy orders, because it would ''violate the secrecy of the confessional.''
I think we should all write letters to the Vatican and apologize for making them slaughter us.
Maybe then the religious will like us?
Religion is and always will be against us!!! No more apologizing for religion I'm sick of it! :angry: