PopeWatch: Kolvenbach

Sandro Magister delves into the Pope’s life in Argentina:

One of the passages of “The Dictator Pope” that has raised the biggest uproar is the one in which the author lifts the veil on the judgment on Bergoglio written in 1991 by the superior general of the Society of Jesus, Peter Hans Kolvenbach (1928-2016) of the Netherlands, in the course of the secret consultations for and against the appointment of Bergoglio as auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires.

The pseudonymous Marcantonio Colonna writes:

“The text of the report has never been made public, but the following account is given by a priest who had access to it before it disappeared from the Jesuit archive: Father Kolvenbach accused Bergoglio of a series of defects, ranging from habitual use of vulgar language to deviousness, disobedience concealed under a mask of humility, and lack of psychological balance; with a view to his suitability as a future bishop, the report pointed out that he had been a divisive figure as Provincial of his own order.”

Too little and too vague. Beyond doubt, however, is the existence of a judgment on Bergoglio that the Vatican authorities requested from Kolvenbach in view of his appointment as bishop.

Just as beyond doubt is the severe friction that existed between the ordinary Jesuit at the time and his superiors of the Society of Jesus, both in Argentina and in Rome.

Abundant, solid, and concurrent information on this friction is provided by other biographies of Bergoglio, not suspect of preconceived hostilities, because they were written by authors very close to him or were even reviewed by him in the course of their composition.

This latter is the case, in particular, with the volume “Aquel Francisco,” written by the Argentines Javier Cámara and Sebastián Pfaffen with the pope’s supervision, dedicated precisely to the years of Bergoglio’s greatest isolation within the society of Jesus.

It does not cover up the fact that Jesuits who were opposed to him went so far as to circulate the rumor that Bergoglio had been sent into exile in Córdoba “because he was sick, crazy.”

But it is completely silent on the judgment against his appointment as bishop written by Jesuit general Kolvenbach, whose name does not appear even once in the more than 300 pages of the book.

Go here to read the rest.  An odd feature of this very odd papacy, is how little exploration there has been of the biography of the man who has been pontiff for almost five years.  Basic facts of his biography remain either unknown or uncertain.  This lack of curiosity is unprecedented for a modern pope.