Pope Francis

About Him

Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on the 17 december 1936 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He studied and received a master’s degree in chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires, but later decided to become a Jesuit priest and studied at the Jesuit seminary of Villa Devoto.
He studied liberal arts in Santiago, Chile, and in 1960 earned a degree in philosophy from the Catholic University of Buenos Aires.In 1964 and 1965 he was  teacher of literature and psychology at Inmaculada high school in the province of Santa Fe, and in 1966 he teach the same courses at the religious College of Salvador in Bueno Aires.


He was set as a priest in argentina in the year 1969, and served as head of the society of jesus in argentina from 1973 to 1979. On June 3, 1997, He was installed as the new archbishop of Buenos Aires and in 2001 he was set as the cardinal of Argentina. After the resignation of pope benedict XVI, he was choseen as the new pope of the roman catholic church elected on 13 march 2013,and choose the name of francis in honour of saint francis of assisi.



(Tais Ferreyros)

Problems inside the Church

The Vatileaks scandal

Last January, information was leaked to Italian reporters about sex scandals within the church. It is said by the Vatican that the person who leaked this information was the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, therefore, he was arrested.  The information passed along were private documents from the Pope Benedict XVI about the corruption within the church, including homosexual activities, involvement with prostitution and blackmail. It is believed that this is the reason why he has abandoned his stand as the Pope. It is the first pope in the 6 previous centuries who has resigned.

Pedophilia / Child Molesters

November 13, 2011 Pope Benedict XVI claimed that pedophilia wasn’t wrong at all, that it wasn’t considered an evil act and also that child pornography was even more close to become totally normal by society.  These words from the Pope bring humiliation to the church and to the Catholics. ‘’Catholics should be embarrassed to hear their Pope talk again and again about abuse while doing little or nothing to stop it and to mischaracterize this heinous crisis’’ , said Barbara Blane, head of SNAP. This is an example of the comments people said. It makes sense because the Pope instead of help and solve this serious problem, he is supporting it in someway.

Now that Pope Benedict XVI has left the church and Pope Francis is the new head elected, he must face these problems and try to solve them. Now the church has a lot of disputes such as these two between lots more. Pope Francis has to bring the church up again and change the reputation Benedict has left and try the best to avoid pedophilia, sex abuse, gay marriage and others. Thought, it’s been difficult for the previous popes to avoid these because they haven’t reached to make any changes. 

(GABRIELA BRAIN)


What is the problem of the relations between Pope Francis and Jorge Rafael Videla?

Jorge Rafael Videla is an 87 year old Argentina who led the Argentina military dictatorship from 1976 to 1981.

There have been accusations in which they criticize Pope Francis of being too close to Videla.The problem here is that they are accusing Pope Francis of not doing enough during Argentina`s Dirty War. (1976-1983)

They believe he failed to protect the priests who challenged Jorge Rafael Videla's dictatorship. 

Pope Francis is algo being accused of not helping Jesuit priests who were kidnapped and later killed in 1976.

(ISABELLA RIVERA)

What is the relationship between Pope Francis 
and the Argentina president Cristina Fernandez?

Before Francis was elected as Pope, they didn’t have a fluid relation, because Pope Francis critized the poverty growth and corruption in Argentina which made the recently deceased president Nestor Kirchner become really angry because he thought that when pope Francis was saying that, he would be sending different perspectives of how Argentina was dealing and by saying those comments, he made Argentina look like it was decaying and was becoming weaker and weaker. The relationship was so tense, that Fernandez used to avoid any contact with Bergoglio. Even though this relation caused a lot of drama, immediately after Bergoglio was chosen Pope, Fernandez requested a meeting in order to share the happiness about the fact that for the first time a roman bishop is a Latin-American.

(Paula van Ginhoven)

 

Hugo Chavez

About him

Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías was born on July 28, 1954 into a working class catholic family in a rural village named Sabaneta.  He lived a hard childhood were he experienced humility, poverty, pain and sometimes he was left with nothing to eat. He calls it ’’ the injustices of the world’’.  He was a military officer and was dissatisfied with the Venezuelan political system. Therefore in 1992 he attempts a coup d’état against the democratic action government of President Carlos Andres Perez failure.  Two years later when he was removed from prison, he founded a social democratic political party named the Fifth Republic Movement  and was elected President of Venezuela in 1998. In 2007 he renamed it the United Socialist Party.

Till that date he’s been the only president in Venezuela. He was strongly allied with the communist government such as Fidel Castro’s in Cuba or Evo Morales in Bolivia. On March 5^th of 2013 he died and now Venezuela found themselves in charge of his Vice – President Nicolas Maduro.  There’s no decision yet if he is going to be the next governor or there is going to be a change.

(GABRIELA BRAIN)

 

Vice President Nicolas Maduro is now President of Venezuela until the upcoming elections

After the death of the president Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Maduro took power and reclaimed his position as President of Venezuela. According to the country’s constitution, if the president is elected but dies after the elections, the vice president would become his successor. In this case, they are actually violating the constitution because Chavez died before the elections so the actual president should be Diosdado Cabello. The constitution also says that elections are called within 30 days. Maduro was requested by Chavez to be the interim president to wait until the elections and so the people would decide to choose between Capriles and Cabello. Capriles said that Maduro was using Chavez funeral to win votes for the elections. But the situation is not simple, the Science and Technology minister Jorge Arreaza (Chavez`s son-in-law) has been named as vice president. He was recently updating the people and the press about Chavez`s condition. The opposition says that they are violating the constitution by “swearing-in”. Currently Diosdado Cabello is the head of the National Assembly, so they are indignant. The place where Chavez was being displayed was in the military academy, which also concerned the opposition because they think that the army shouldn’t be playing roles. Politicians from all around the world expressed their condolences by visiting Venezuela; the firsts presidents who travelled where the presidents from Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia, etc.

Paula van Ginhoven

 

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles to challenge Nicolas Maduro

Henrique Capriles, 40 year-old who lost against Hugo Chavez on the past elections on October 2012, challenged Nicolas Maduro 50 year-old Chavista in the April 14 elections.
Nicolas Maduro was named after Hugo Chavez as his favoured successor as well as Vice President of his political party. He said he was running for presidancy as a way of being loyal to Hugo Chavez and not for personal ambition.

In his speech, Henrique Capriles said referring to Maduro –

 “Nicolas,” he said, speaking directly to Maduro, “I am not going to leave you an open road, friend. You will have to defeat me with votes. I am going to fight with these hands. I’ll fight for each vote.”

Henrique Capriles also accused the governing PSUV party (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela) of manipulating the death of Hugo Chavez.

The aim for Capriles political party campaign is for Venezuela to move forward. This is his second time running for presidency.

Nicolas Maduro              Henrique Capriles

(ISABELLA RIVERA)

Political situation

Elections are between Nicolas Maduro and Henrique Capriles. However, things can change until april 14^th. Henrique Capriles goals consist on moving away from relations with Iran, promoting education and mixing socialism with a market system.These thing will make Venezuela emerge as a better country.
Global oil markets are steady after the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
 In economic  views Venezuela is in a steady right now until a new president is elected in the elections of the 14th of april.

With Chavez dead, Raul Castro claims to have lost his best friend.
Chavez death made cuban president Raul Castro worried and he hopes that Nicolas Maduro will win the elections as well as expects him to continue his Cuban policies for the immediate future.

(Tais Ferreyros)