Antonio Caggiano

infobox cardinalstyles
cardinal name=Antonio Caggiano
dipstyle=His Eminence
offstyle=Your Eminence
See=Buenos Aires|"His Eminence" Antonio Caggiano (30 January 1889 – 23 October 1979) was an archbishop. In 1946, Pope Pius XII created him cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church in Argentina.

Caggiano was born in Coronda, Santa Fe Province. He studied in the seminary of Santa Fe and became a priest there in 1912, at the age of 23. From 1913 to 1931 he taught at the seminary. In the 1920s he was sent to Rome by the Argentine Episcopacy, together with three other priests, in order to study the organization of the "Azione Cattolica" (the Italian Catholic Action). The Argentine Catholic Action was founded in 1931 following this model.

Caggiano was appointed the first bishop of the newly erected Diocese of Rosario on 13 September 1934, for which he was specifically ordained on 14 March 1935. Pope Pius XII elevated him to Cardinal on 18 February 1946. In 1946, he went to the Vatican to offer his country, in the name of the Argentine government, as a refuge for French Collaborationists and Nazi war criminals which were in hiding in Rome. [Uki Goñi, "The Real Odessa", Granta, London, 2002, and [http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-14198-2002-12-15.html La Odessa que creó Perón] , "Pagina/12", 15 December 2002 es icon ] .

He participated in the 1958 and 1963 conclaves, but Ingravescentem aetatem prevented him from participating in any further conclave after 1970 as he had already reached eighty years of age.

On 15 August 1959 he was appointed Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He was installed there on 25 October. On 14 December of that year he was also appointed vicar of the Military Ordinariate of Argentina.

Caggiano retired from the Archbishopric on 22 April 1975, and resigned from the Military Ordinariate on 7 July of the same year. He was the Archbishop Emeritus of Buenos Aires for four more years. He died in 1979, at the age of 90, and was buried in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires.

Anti-communism

Caggiano, like many in the Catholic Church in Argentina, did not denounce the repeated human rights abuses committed by the Argentine military from the 1960s on. Instead, he saw these as valid means to save the Church and the country from Marxism.

"Le Marxisme-Léninisme"

In 1961, Caggiano wrote a prologue for the first translated version (by Colonel Juan Francisco Guevara) of "Le Marxisme-léninisme", written by Jean Ousset, private secretary of monarchist intellectual Charles Maurras, and founder of the "Cité catholique" fundamentalist organization. In this prologue, Caggiano thanked the "men of "La Ciudad Católica" of Argentina." Quoted by Horacio Verbitsky, in "The Silence", extract transl. in English made available by Open Democracy: [http://www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/2709.pdf Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the "dirty war"] , July 28, 2005, p.4 ] In "Le Marxisme-léninisme", Jean Ousset wrote that Marxists could only be combatted by "a profound faith, an unlimited obedience to the Holy Father, and a thorough knowledge of the Church's doctrines." [ Quoted by Horacio Verbitsky in "The Silence", extract transl. in English made available by Open Democracy: [http://www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/2709.pdf Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the "dirty war"] , July 28, 2005 ] . Along with Colonel Jean Gardes, French expert in psychological warfare, Ousset developed the new concept of "subversion." According to Horacio Verbitsky, "this conceived a protean, quintessential enemy who, rather than being defined by his actions, was seen as a force trying to subvert Christian order, natural law or the Creator's plan." [ Horacio Verbitsky in "The Silence", p.3 of [http://www.opendemocracy.net/content/articles/PDF/2709.pdf Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the "dirty war"] , Open Democracy, July 28, 2005 en icon ] . The first branch of the "Cité catholique" — which included members of the OAS terrorist group founded in Madrid during the Algerian War — outside of France was created in 1958 in Argentina [ Horacio Verbitsky, "ibid.", p.3 ] .

In this prologue, Caggiano explained that Marxism is born of "the negation of Christ and his Church put into practice by the Revolution" and spoke of a Marxist conspiracy to take over the world, for which it was necessary to "prepare for the decisive battle," although the enemy had not yet "taken up arms." Horacio Verbitsky commented this: "As often happens in a continent that imports ideas, the doctrine of annihilation preceded that of the revolutionary uprising." Caggiano compared this vigilance to the one that preceded the 1571 Battle of Lepanto "to save Europe from domination by the Turks." . Ousset's book included a list of the papal bulls condemning communism.

Counter-insurgency

Together with President Arturo Frondizi, Caggiano inaugurated the first course on counter-revolutionary warfare in the Higher Military College (Frondizi was eventually overthrown for being "tolerant of Communism"). French colonels Robert Bentresque and Jean Nougues were advisors for this course, and priests such as bishop Victorio Bonamín, Caggiano's associate in the military vicariate general, was one of its instructor. One of the first tasks of this course was to explain this 1411 quotation from Dietrick von Niequen, bishop of Verden:

"When the existence of the Church is threatened, it is no longer bound by the commandments of morality. When unity is the aim, all means are justified: deceit, treachery, violence, usury, prison and death. Because order serves the good of the community, and the individual has to be sacrificed for the common good." Quoted by Horacio Verbitsky, ibid., p.4 ]

By 1963, cadets at the (then infamously well-known) Navy Mechanics School started receiving counter-insurgency classes. In one of these courses, they were shown the film "The Battle of Algiers" (1966), made by Italian communist director Gillo Pontecorvo. The film, censored in France, showed the methods used by the French colonial army in Algeria, including the systemic use of torture which would be a key part of counter-insurgency doctrine. Caggiano, the military chaplain at the time, introduced the film approvingly and added a religiously oriented commentary to it. Anibal Acosta, one of the ESMA cadet interviewed 35 years later by French journalist Marie-Monique Robin described the session:

"They showed us that film to prepare us for a kind of war very different from the regular war we had entered the Navy School for. They were preparing us for police missions against the civilian population, who became our new enemy."

On 2 July 1966, four days after President Arturo Umberto Illia was removed from office and replaced by the dictator Juan Carlos Onganía, Caggiano declared: "We are at a sort of dawn, in which, thanks to God, we all sense that the country is again headed for greatness."

References

See also

*Marie-Monique Robin
*Dirty War

External links

* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7697789 Antonio Caggiano] on Find A Grave.
* Hernán Pacheco, Pablo Carrera. [http://www.nuncamas.org/investig/varela/varela_12.htm "Los que no están". Desaparecidos y dictadura cívico-militar en Florencio Varela (1976 – 1983)"] .
* Horacio Verbitsky, OpenDemocracy. 28 July 2005. [http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/catholicchurch_2709.jsp Breaking the silence: the Catholic Church in Argentina and the "dirty war"] .
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