There is less than a week until the Tedéum on May 25 in the Buenos Aires Cathedral. Monsignor Jorge Bergoglio answers an urgent call. On the other side of the line, a powerful Kirchner official whose last name is Fernández and whose name begins with A speaks to him.
“Monsignor,” the official tells him, “I’m calling you because the President is hesitating about going to the Tedeum this Sunday…”
-Because? —Bergoglio answers. It would be a shame if he didn’t come.
The official transmits the message:
—Do you know what’s happening? He is worried about some of the things you are going to say in your homily. He considers them unfair…
The archbishop of Buenos Aires, virtual head of the Argentine Catholic Church, feels a chill.
Ask:
—But how does he know what the homily says?
The official evades the question:
—Look, the only thing the President asks of you is that you not be unfair to him. He wants to go on Sunday…
After cutting off communication, Bergoglio is left thinking…
No one has yet had in their hands the writing that he intends to read at the tedeum, in a few days… No one except him and his most trusted collaborators. So, how did President Néstor Kirchner obtain that text?
The year is 2006 and the relationship between the monsignor and the Government is in a difficult moment. Kirchner points to him as “the head of the opposition.” Bergoglio, for his part, is irritated by the exalted and always quarrelsome style of this leader who came from Patagonia. There is a skin issue for which the two repel each other, time and time again. But until now the President had never gone this far: letting his adversary know that he is being spied on violates the most basic rules of coexistence.
Bergoglio searches among his papers for the homily he wrote with his Remington typewriter, and which also has the additions suggested in blue ink by his spokesperson, Father Guillermo Marcó. Two days ago María Luisa, the secretary of the archbishopric, transferred the clean text to the computer. Only from there could the Kirchnerist spies have extracted it.
Bergoglio was hacked.
Father Marcó, the cardinal’s other self, is the one who some time later confides the gruesome scene to me and says:
—No one had that text. We always gave it to the Casa Rosada and the press the day before the Tedeum, but this was before: no one had it yet…
—Who in the Government did they give it to? -asked.
—To Oscar Parrilli, the general secretary of the Presidency, who was Bergoglio’s usual interlocutor —Marcó answers.
“But he wasn’t the one who called that time to complain about what the homily said,” I tell him.
— No. That time one of the Fernándezes called —Marcó gives a clue, but immediately asks for mercy—: don’t ask me which one.
Aníbal, then Minister of the Interior, was the Fernández who had the best relationship with Bergoglio. Alberto was the chief of staff. Neither of them took charge of this story.
I continue asking the former spokesperson of who is now Pope Francis:
—Did they confirm that Bergoglio’s computer was hacked?
“We confirm it,” says Marcó. I found one of those companies that inspect phones and computers. And what they detected is that the PC that Bergoglio used was bugged. Telephones too.
—Does Bergoglio use a cell phone?
—He doesn’t have one. He answers the archbishopric’s telephone line between 7 and 8 in the morning. Those of us who want to talk to him call him at that time, he gets up early.
—How did Bergoglio take the fact that he had been hacked?
—I had already suspected that he was being watched. When someone important visited him in the archbishopric, he played functional music in the background so that the SIDE could not hear what they were talking about. Functional or also religious music.
—Any more information?
—After finding out that we were tapped, we no longer discussed some topics on the phone. Furthermore, when we refer to Néstor Kirchner or Cristina in a conversation, we give them nicknames to mislead…
—What nicknames?
—I don’t like to say them. Similar to what people use…
Marco smiles.
Would they call the President “El Loco” or “El Vizcacha”?
Would they call his wife “The Queen”?
—In addition,” adds Marcó, “now when we talk on the phone we always send “regards to the SIDE.”
We must return to the conflictive Tedeum of May 25, 2006 that motivated the call of one of the Fernándezes to Bergoglio. This time, contrary to custom, the cardinal decides not to advance his speech to the Government House a day earlier. Why, if Kirchner is already aware of everything he plans to say? The text is not anticipated by the media either, perhaps to prevent any unwanted leaks.
It is the first time he has taken that measure.
On tedeum Sunday, finally, the President gives the present that he had previously questioned. The Cathedral bursts with faithful, officials and journalists. Sitting in the first row in front of the pulpit, Néstor and Cristina Kirchner listen to the archbishop’s bitter admonitions.
“Unfortunate is the vengeful and resentful person,” Bergoglio lashes out, “who looks for enemies and culprits only outside so as not to live with his bitterness and resentment, because over time it will become perverted, turning those feelings into a pseudo-identity, if not a business…
The President listens with a tense expression and raises his gaze towards the leadership.
Alberto Fernández takes notes in a notebook, concentrating on each word.
The hacked cardinal continues:
—Happy if we are persecuted for wanting a homeland where reconciliation allows us to live, work and prepare a dignified future for those who come after us. Happy if we oppose hatred and permanent confrontation…
Kirchner narrows his eyes, furious. Fernández continues taking notes.
—How many times—Bergoglio strikes again—have we Argentines fallen into the misfortune of internalism, of the constant exclusion of those we believe to be contrary, of defamation and slander as a space for confrontation and clash? Unfortunate attitudes that lock us in the vicious circle of endless confrontation…
The President already seems absorbed and resigned. His Chief of Staff has stopped scoring.
Bergoglio stabs another dagger:
—How many of these whims and outbursts of an easy way out, of “business now,” of believing that our cunning solves everything, have cost us delays and misery? Don’t they reflect our arrogant and immature insecurity?
As the homily comes to an end, Kirchner opens his eyes and emerges from his nightmare.
Cristina, at his side, remains silent.
Alberto whispers quietly with the other Fernández in the Cabinet, Aníbal, perhaps to coordinate an official response to the slap the Government has just received.
Bergoglio’s collaborators, guided by spokesperson Marcó, distribute—now—the speech among the journalists. They also give two copies to the Fernándezes.
Now that Bergoglio has finished speaking, you can have it. And compare it with the text that they had hacked: despite the telephone warning, the monsignor did not change a comma.
What did they expect from him?
The journalistic chronicles of the time recorded the curious fact that the text of the homily was only delivered to officials and journalists after the performance, but no one explained the reason.
Bergoglio did not want to make it public either.
He had already dropped a clue in his harsh sermon:
—Possibly the purity of a heart that loves its convictions causes rejection and persecution.
A while later, the Government came out to respond and lower the price on the matter.
Alberto Fernández, the one who had taken note of everything, explained:
—It is not for the Government. It is a message for all Argentines, for all citizens.
Aníbal, the other Fernández, agreed:
—It was a very important message. Those who maintain that it was against the Government should be labeled as mercenary disinformers.
Nilda Garré, the Minister of Defense, supported them:
—I did not take Bergoglio’s message as alluding to the President. The President is democratic, the State institutions function fully.
Daniel Filmus, the Minister of Education, joined the task of covering the sun with his hand:
—In no way did we see it as a criticism of the Government. It wasn’t hard, quite the opposite. He has raised the issues of today’s Argentina.
Only the deputy Miguel Bonasso, at that time still a Kirchnerist, allowed himself to disagree:
—If it was against the Government? The Jesuits have a way of qualifying what they say…
And yes, Bergoglio is a Jesuit: religious and political simultaneously.
His words, which were in line with the opposition’s description of Kirchnerism, left little to the imagination: resentment, confrontation, vengeful spirit, clash, resentment, “business now”… And also, of course, persecution.
That 2006 was the last May 25 that the archbishop celebrated the tedeum in the Buenos Aires Cathedral. The Kirchners would henceforth move the event to different churches in the interior of the country where the priest on duty would guarantee them more benevolent treatment. And Bergoglio, snubbed, was left out of the national holiday.
Father Marcó, his former spokesperson, continues to tell me:
—The thing about Bergoglio’s tedeum was something that I advised him. Before he arrived at the archbishopric, the homily in the Cathedral was given by any priest. But the President, the ministers, the judges of the Court, the military leaders were going to listen to him… It was necessary to take advantage of that platform, the archbishop had to speak, not a priest.
“And Bergoglio listened to you,” I tell him.
“He understood it perfectly,” continues Marcó. But later, with Kirchnerism, the issue became complicated. Upon taking office, on May 25, 2003, Kirchner invented a command transition tedeum in the Basilica of Luján. I talk to Scioli, his running mate, and I tell him that it would be a shame if he didn’t come to Bergoglio’s homily. “I’m going to talk about it,” Scioli tells me. And he convinced him. That same afternoon, Kirchner came to the Cathedral. But it cost.
—And the following year?
—May 25, 2004 also came. It was a strong speech by Bergoglio, the President did not like it. We sent it to him a day before and there were some complaints, but he came… Of course, Horacio Verbitsky, Bergoglio’s great enemy, was also there. And he asked Kirchner why he had to continue subjecting himself to that torture.
—You can see that he heard it.
—The following year, Kirchner announced that he would not go and Bergoglio suspended the tedeum. All on the initiative of Verbitsky. And in 2006 he returned, but for the last time.
That was the time he got hacked. Since then there has been no more tedeum.
