New Weapons of the “Enemy”. Argentine Catholic Traditionalist and their “Crusade” against Human Rights during the “National Reorganization Process” (1976-1983)

Abstract

During the early years of the "National Reorganization Process" (1976-1983) a sector of the argentine Catholicism, the catholic traditionalists, undertook a damning "crusade" against allegations about the human rights violations that were being committed by the State. This sector of the Catholicism, the more committed with clandestine repressive methods, believed that human rights represented a new weapon of "subversion" to debilitate and discredit the image of the Military Board abroad. Starting from analyzing two particular junctures of those years -the document prepared by the Episcopal Conference of Argentina in May 1977 and the World Cup next year- this paper will attempt to show the positions taken by the catholic groups and the traditionalist bishops around allegations of human rights violations, and also will show the tensions within the interior of catholic Episcopate in regard of its first pronouncements on the subject.