Pio Laghi. If this is a cardinal

Reflections by Vania Lucia Gaito drawn from Travelionelsilenzio del 13 gennaio 2009

It is said that "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum", the dead can be said nothing but well. But in some cases, however efforts, you cannot be politically correct. This is the case of Monsignor Pio Laghi, Cardinal, Apostolic Nuncio, 85 years old, most of which to spend in diplomatic missions. They will forgive me those who agree with Diogenes Laerzio, but my commemoration of Cardinal Laghi will differ a little from the "De Mortuis".
Pio Laghi was not only "a man of great value and precious virtues", as the president of the Molise region, Michele Iorio, recalled it on "Il Tempo". Otherwise, the Madres De Plaza de Mayo, the Argentine Madri, wives and sisters of the 30,000 desaparecidos during the military dictatorship that terrified Argentina from 1974 to 1980 are remembered.

At that time, Monsignor Laghi was already an apostolic nuncio in Argentina. And he played tennis with Emilio Massera, at the time at the head of the Argentine Navy, of which he was a friendly friend.
Il 19 maggio 1997 le Madri, con il patrocinio legale di Sergio Schoklender, presentarono denuncia alle autorità italiane contro Pio Laghi, che, come è scritto nella stessa denuncia, «collaborò attivamente con i membri sanguinari della dittatura militare e portò avanti personalmente una campagna volta ad occultare tanto verso l’interno quanto verso l’esterno del Paese l’orrore, la morte e la distruzione.

Monsignor Pio Laghi actively worked on the countless complaints of the families of the victims of state terrorism and the reports of national and international organizations for human rights ».
And also denounced Laghi for "silenced the international complaints about the disappearance of more than thirty priests and on the death of Catholic bishops. Pio Laghi equipped, with the members of the Argentine episcopate, to the appointment of military chaplains, the police and prisons that guaranteed silence on the executions, torture and rapes they witnessed. These chaplains had the obligation not only to spiritually comfort the authors of the genocides and torturers, but also, through confession, to collaborate with the army by extorting information to prisoners ".

Three months after the military coup, the apostolic nuncio, in a homily, argued: "The soldiers fulfill their primary duty to love God and the homeland that is in danger. Not only can we speak of invasion of foreigners, but also of the invasion of ideas that jeopardize the fundamental values. This causes an emergency situation and, in these circumstances, the thought of St. Thomas of Aquinas can be applied. He teaches that in such cases the love for the homeland is equivalent to love for God. "

The "high church" was close to military dictatorship, on the other hand, the "low church", that made of priests and nuns close to the most miserable bands of the population, also cried its losses.
In Plaza de Mayo, among the thousands of desperate mothers for the fate of their children Desaparecidos, only the church, mother of dozens and dozens of priests and sisters of the desaparecidos, shone for her absence. But to give strength to the denunciation of the mothers there were not only the public externalizations of lakes, but a sequence of very heavy testimonies, including those of many ecclesiastics, priests and nuns.
The presence of Pio Laghi in the concentration camps and extermination of Argentina is duly accredited, while accompanied groups of military in inspection and questioned the prisoners.

María Ignacia Cergos de Delgado, wife of the journalist Julián Delgado, who passed away in June 1978, said: "The apostolic nuncio Pio Laghi was aware of everything that happened in the Marina mechanics school, could verify the names of the seized there and the commander in the head of the navy, Armando Lambruschini, consulted him on the opportunity to leave a group of 40. Desaparecidos he had received, when he had assumed the assignment, from the previous commander of the Navy, Emilio Eduardo Massera ».

The apostolic nuncio collaborated in the decisions regarding the detained detainees. In some cases personally and in others through the Vicariate Castrense. During the trial of the former commanders, Monsignor Grasselli admitted that he had the task of drawing up a file with the names of the missing people and to keep in touch with the military government to keep the information updated in his possession.

In the 1560 file of the National Commission for the disappearance of people, the fact that Monsignor Grasselli informed the family members of one of the disappeared who came to seek information, that the disappearance were in places of "rehabilitation" and that, to what he called "unrecognizable, it is possible that some pitiful person makes an injection, and the unrecoverable falling asleep forever".

Very heavy, the complaint of the journalist Horacio Verbitsky: upon arrival in Argentina of the Intemerican commission for the human rights of the OEA, the members of the Navy found themselves a quantity of prisoners who still disappeared alive to be hidden. For this purpose, they resorted to the good offices of Pio Laghi. Monsignor Grasselli ceded to the ESMA operating group, with authorization of the apostolic nuncio, an island in the locality of the tiger of the tiger called "silence", so that it was used as a transitional concentration center for prisoners. On this island, the Cardinal Primate of Buenos Aires Juan Carlos Aramburu and the Apostolic Nuncio Pio Laghi met regularly for the weekend barbecue.

When the disappearance, torture and atrocities committed in this concentration camp came to light, Monsignor Grasselli architectated a fake sale of the island to the members of the Navy military contingent, using the documents of one of the Desaparecidos prisoners recorded in his archive, Marcelo Camilo Hernández as the identity of the buyer, trying to hide the work of the nunciature.

Many mothers went to Pio Laghi, during those terrible years, to ask for his intervention for the liberation of their children. Among the many, in 1979, Hebe de Bonafini, president of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo association, also went to the Nuncio.
Lo stesso Nunzio apostolico ne ordinò l’arresto, la donna fu portata via da diverse pattuglie di polizia mentre era ancora in attesa di essere ricevuta da Laghi. Fu trattenuta ed interrogata per cinque ore e fu rilasciata solo grazie all’intervento di centinaia di altre Madri che mobilitarono tutte le risorse disponibili.

Quando nel 1997 firmò la denuncia contro Laghi, Hebe de Bonafini disse ai giornalisti: «L’ex nunzio è stato visto nei centri di detenzione clandestini, è stato consultato sul destino dei detenuti desaparecidos e sulla forma di esecuzione pietosa e cristiana degli stessi.
Ha partecipato alla decisione sul trattamento da riservare alle donne incinte, a cui fu data la possibilità di scegliere tra tortura e stupro. Ha ordinato l’arresto della presidente delle Madri alla porta della nunziatura, a cui è seguito un interrogatorio di cinque ore da parte del personale dell’Intelligence militare. Noi Madri abbiamo sofferto il disprezzo della Chiesa, dai cui vertici giunse la decisione, che dipendeva forse anche da Laghi, di non somministrarci la comunione “perché, eravamo piene di odio”.»

La denuncia contro Laghi «è dovere morale non solo delle Madri, ma di tutti i cattolici. Anche uomini della Chiesa appoggiano la nostra iniziativa perché, la considerano la maniera più sana di eliminare dalla Chiesa le persone non oneste»
The complaint, delivered to the press, was not reported neither by the Roman Observer nor by Avvenire, who limited themselves to calling it "an act against justice, honesty and historical truth" and publishing with a wide resonance the denial of Pio Laghi: the former apostolic nuncio considered defamatory and without foundation the statements of the mothers, who defined as "this group of Argentine women".

In accordance with the proverb that states "dog does not eat dog", the Argentine episcopal conference published a few lines of press release to express its solidarity with the cardinal.
As for the complaint, Pio Laghi as an Italian citizen could have been criminally in Italy for crimes committed abroad, with a complex procedure: the complaint had to be sent to the Public Prosecutor's Office through the Ministry of Grace and Justice, the only titled to decide its legislation.
However, as a cardinal, Pio Laghi enjoyed immunity, by virtue of the concordat between Italy and the Holy See. Immunity that can be suspended or withdrawn only by the Pope, John Paul II, who in fact does not suspend it and did not withdraw it.
Therefore the complaint did not take place.

Eppure, il suo operato in Argentina gli valse la “promozione” a Nunzio apostolico negli Stati Uniti. Lavorava con lui un certo padre Tom Doyle, esperto canonista, che fu tra i primi ad interessarsi al problema dei sacerdoti pedofili, insieme a padre Michael Peterson, psichiatra, e all’avvocato Ray Mouton. Incominciroano a collaborare tra loro nel gennaio del 1985.

Peterson era direttore della casa di cura S. Luca a Silver Spring (MD); Doyle faceva l’avvocato canonista nella nunziatura e Mouton difendeva in tribunale padre Gilbert Gauthe. La collaborazione continuò per cinque mesi e produsse un “Manuale”, che prendeva in considerazione gli aspetti civili, canonici e psicologici degli abusi sessuali commessi da membri del clero.

Le loro conclusioni sembrarono troppo drastiche ad alcuni prelati, ma oggi sono considerate profetiche. La Chiesa Cattolica, affermavano, dovrà affrontare “conseguenze finanziarie molto gravi” e “un grave danno d’immagine”. Fecero notare che erano già stati sborsati più di 100 milioni di dollari per le cause di un prete di una sola diocesi. I

l pagamento di altre sette cause superava i 5 milioni di dollari e “il pagamento medio previsto per ogni caso si aggira sui 500 mila dollari”. “Le perdite prevedibili per il prossimo decennio” sarebbero state stimate in un miliardo di dollari. Avvertirono che televisioni e giornali erano al corrente della vicenda e l’Associazione Forense e gli avvocati di parte civile stavano “studiando le informazioni riguardanti questa parte giuridica del tutto nuova”.
“Le probabilità della denuncia alla Chiesa Cattolica sono molto forti”, sostenevano, e si raccomandava che al clero denunciato non fosse permesso di esercitare “nessuna funzione presbiterale”.

Nei mesi successivi Doyle continuò a suonare l’allarme. E ne pagò il prezzo. Nel 1986 fu rimosso dalla nunziatura, perse la cattedra, fu ostracizzato dai vescovi. Mentre Doyle perdeva il favore della gerarchia, non così il suo vecchio capo, monsignor Laghi, che rappresentò il Vaticano negli Stati Uniti dal 1980 al 1990, il periodo in cui gli abusi del clero furono numerosissimi e ampiamente ignorati dalla gerarchia. Dopo le sue peregrinazioni diplomatiche, tornò a Roma e Papa Giovanni Paolo II lo nominò cardinale nel giugno 1991.

A telegram of condolence was sent to the grandchildren of Cardinal Laghi by Benedict XVI: "The sad news of the disappearance of your dear uncle Cardinal Pio Laghi has aroused alive emotion in my soul in the grateful memory of his long and generous service to the Holy See in particular as a papal representative in different countries and as a prefect of the Congregation for Catholic education".

The pontiff reassured the family: he would have prayed to God so that he "wants to give him the prize granted to the faithful servants of the Gospel". Here, if these are the faithful servants of the Gospel ...