In the early to mid-1970s, a Jesuit priest began a quiet, indeed almost unknown [at the time] effort, to help political refugees, liberals, and reformers, escape incarceration or liquidation by militarily-dominated South American governments.  During this period, the priest never spoke out against these governments, although one Catholic bishop – Jeronimo Podesta – did so and had been promptly suspended as a priest, never to return to the clergy.  At the same time, this Jesuit priest continued to help many of those persecuted by the government, and various reports put the number of those he helped or saved in excess of a hundred, possibly more, at a time when literally thousands of people vanished, never to be seen again. Much later, in 2000, he was the first prominent Catholic to declare that the Argentine Catholic Church needed to put on “garments of public penance” for its failures during the “Dirty War” of the 1970s. That Jesuit priest, of course, was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis.

Some of his detractors fault him for not speaking out and taking a public position during the Dirty War.  Others, particularly those he did save, praise him for what he did, noting that he even saved people and made efforts for those with whose political beliefs he did not agree.

Was he a hero, as some say, or did he betray his duty as a priest by not taking a public stance? While likely everyone will have an answer, I’d like to pose the question differently – when is taking a public position useful, even heroic, and when is it a futile and meaningless gesture, one that essentially keeps the individual from doing any good at all?

In a way, to my thinking, what happened in Nazi Germany before WWII offers a useful analogy.  In 1930, speaking out against Hitler and the Nazis might have done some good, especially if more powerful and noteworthy individuals had done so.  By 1940, doing so was suicide, and a suicide that accomplished absolutely nothing.

Father Bergoglio had been ordained as a priest in December 1969, and did not even become a Jesuit until 1973.  He was not that well-known, if known at all outside of a limited circle, and, as a man from a humble background, who had been a janitor and a low-level laboratory technician, he certainly didn’t have powerful friends or influential contacts at that point in his life.  When those few in the church who had position and power, such as Podesta, did speak out, they were silenced, in one way or another.  It would appear that Father Bergoglio did what he could do and did his best to save those that he could.

Was it heroism?  Probably not grand and glorious heroism, but it took great courage and strength of will, because, if he had been discovered, he would likely have vanished as so many others did during that time. And is it heroism, truly, to speak out when it is vain, when by being less obvious, one could save more?  Yet…how does one tell?  And without being in Father Bergoglio’s cassock at the time, how can those who would judge him tell, either?

NOTE:  As one whose beliefs approximate Anglican/Episcopalian agnosticism, I’m trying to offer an open question.