Viggo Mortensen knows nothing about the Church or Benedict XVI. But he does know Cardinal Bergoglio, turns out. They love the same soccer team.
those pictures of him that have been circulating all over the Internet – with the San Lorenzo flag, and you see a brick sort of background to it? That’s inside a small chapel that I actually donated some years ago to the team. The idea was that it was an ecumenical place, meaning that it was open to people of all faith, even, as we said when we dedicated the chapel, a place where anyone could come to be in peace and meditate and seek tranquility for all, even those who don’t believe in anything. And sometime after that, he came to consecrate it, to bless the place. The picture was taken then.And:
Yeah, I know about him a lot. I’m not just sitting at a desk, going through his history. I know initially when he was named there were a lot of rumors circulated about his complicity with the dictatorial regime in the ‘70s, and that was disproved. There were even lots of photographs, supposedly showing him giving communion to Jorge Videla, the president, the dictator. All those – it was proven it was not him, it was another priest. There’s a lot of malicious gossip, and I suppose it’s not just a left-wing thing, or right-wing thing. It might be people who don’t think much of the Catholic Church, people who have grudges, and so forth. I don’t think you get to be pope without making some enemies, like you do when you’re president.....
So there’s some controversy. But for the couple of people who have come out and said, “Oh, he’s complicit,” well they’re not speaking for the couple priests who were abused by the regime and kept in prison and tortured and stuff like that. People who knew him well – human rights activists, including the Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1980, and also a woman judge who in 1973 was kicked out of the country — people who have been treated really badly and, if it was true, would have every reason to speak against him, have come out staunchly defending him. So I don’t really feel like he was someone who was in – he definitely doesn’t have some huge secret that’s been disclosed.
And for ninme, who years ago wondered what the deal was with Christians and Praying Hands, the Wall Street Journal explains in The Odd, Enduring Power of 'Praying Hands.'
And they're coming to Washington soon. So ya'll come visit.
