Pope Francis: A Social Conservative

A Social Conservative: Pope Francis Led Effort Against Liberation Theology and Same-Sex Marriage

Complicity of Bergoglio with human rights violations during the dictatorship in Argentina?

Argentine journalist Horacio Verbitsky as saying he had "no reason to think he did something for our freedom but rather the opposite."

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the Argentine who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights advocacy in 1980 (while the military was still in power), said on his website that Bergoglio did not work with the dictatorship, but had also not spoken out strongly against it.

"I do not consider that Jorge Bergoglio was complicit in the dictatorship, but I believe he lacked the courage to join our struggle for human rights in the most difficult moments," he wrote after voicing his hope that the new pope "has the courage to defend the rights of the people in the face of the powerful without repeating the serious errors and even sins that the church committed."

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Then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio led the opposition against Argentina’s law that gives same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children. Before the law passed, Bergoglio wrote a letter, and addressed the monasteries in Argentina, in which he asked monks to pray fervently about a, quote, "situation whose outcome can seriously harm the family. ... At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts. ... Let us not be naive: this is not simply a political struggle, but it is an attempt to destroy God’s plan," he said

Legalization of gay marriage?

Bergoglio called to a holy war, una guerra de Dios, against this evil’s move.

Abortion and contraception?

Bergoglio was opposed

Now that he’s been elevated to pope, could he change in his perspectives on some of these issues? Or should we expect him to maintain the same populist conservatism that have marked his rise through the church hierarchy?