Argentina–Holy See relations ratified. In March 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires was elected Pope. Argentina–Holy See relations Argentina–Holy See relations are the foreign relations between Argentina and the Holy See. The current pope, Pope Francis, was the former Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Argentina, which was a Spanish colony as part of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, lost its relation with the Holy See during the Argentine War of Independence. Both countries reestablished diplomatic relations on 17 April 1840, during the administration of Juan Manuel de Rosas. Argentina has an embassy to the Holy See, and the Holy
Esther Ballestrino In 1976 two of her sons, Manuel Carlos Cuevas and Ives Domergue, were kidnapped and they disappeared. Ballestrino was credited with helping found the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo which came out of other mothers of missing children who met at the Plaza de Mayo. The next year, her pregnant daughter Ana Maria Careaga was also abducted in December 1977 by the authorities and tortured. Ballestrino contacted her associate, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, and asked that he come to give the last rites to a relative. The Catholic Bergoglio was surprised, as he knew that Ballestrino was a Marxist. When