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lawyers representing victims of the Dirty War extensively examined Cardinal Bergoglio in a court proceeding and questioned why he met with Jorge Videla and Emilio Massera, leaders of the juanta. Perhaps, they insinuated, he was a co-conspirator with the dictators. After all, during their time in captivity, Father Yorio and Father Jalics were told by their captors that Father Bergoglio was the one that betrayed them, and Father Bergoglio did not publicly call out for their release.
     
    Father Bergoglio recognized that a public call for the release of the priests would be a very dangerous act for both him and his order. Instead, he arranged secretly to plead for their release. In a letter to Father Jalics’ brother, Father Bergoglio wrote, “I have lobbied the government many times for your brother’s release. So far we have had no success. But I have not lost hope that your brother will soon be released. I have made this affair MY thing. The difficulties that your brother and I have had over the religious life have nothing to do with it” (as quoted in Ch. 7 of Pope Francis by Matthew Bunson).
     
    Risking his own life, Father Bergoglio was determined to speak face to face with Jorge Videla, the general at the helms of the junta government, and Admiral Massera. His interest with Massera, a naval admiral high in the juanta, was to get to Videla in order to plead for the release of the priests. Not successful in his first meeting with Videla, Father Bergoglio committed to try again. Father Bergoglio found the priest who routinely held Mass for Videla at his home and convinced him to call in sick one day so he could trade places with the priest. He went to the general’s home to say Mass and then approached Videla. Videla confirmed that, as Father Bergoglio had suspected, Father Yorio and Father Jalics were indeed being held at the Naval Mechanics School. He then approached Massera. In 2010, Bergoglio shared with the court his conversation with the admiral: “‘Look, Massera, I want them back alive.’ I got up and left.” The next day, the two priests were released, after five months into their ordeal, drugged, and dropped from a helicopter into a marsh.
     
    The priests later realized that Father Bergoglio had not betrayed them to the juanta and were reconciled to him. Father Jalics now lives in Germany and has supported Bergoglio’s papacy. Father Lombardi at the Vatican countered the attacks on Bergoglio for these events: “The accusations pertain to a use of historical-sociological analysis of the dictatorship period made years ago by left-wing anticlerical elements to attack the Church. They must be firmly rejected” (as quoted in Ch. 7 of Pope Francis by Matthew Bunson). But this was not all. Father Bergoglio in fact had much to hide from the juanta.
     
    Bergoglio admitted in interviews that he helped to hide wanted persons from the juanta during the Dirty War and even provided his own identification to a wanted man who resembled him. The book, “Bergoglio’s List”, reveals that Father Bergoglio was actually the mastermind of a secret network carefully orchestrated to hide and transport targeted persons. The network worked from a Jesuit institution that was located only a few blocks away from the president’s palace. Fugitives were enrolled at the Colegio Máximo seminary in San Miguel as students or retreatants. Neither the fugitives nor Bergoglio’s collaborators knew who among them was a fugitive and who was an actual student. They were only told enough information to accomplish their particular mission. According to Magister, “Bergoglio was the only one who held all the strings.” Fugitives were often transported to Brazil secretly by land or to Uruguay by cargo boat and passed for hired help. According to Father Juan Scannone, a Jesuit who worked with Father Bergoglio, “If one of us had known and had been abducted and subjected to torture, the whole network of protection would have fallen apart.