Falklands: Pope asked to intervene in row

THE Pope has been asked by Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner to intervene in the ongoing Falklands dispute.

During a visit to the Vatican yesterday Ms Kirchner said she had asked the Pope to promote dialogue between her country and the UK.

She was the first head of state to be received by the new Pope, who is from Argentina. He was elected last week and will be formally installed as pontiff at a Mass later today.

Before Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 79, was elected, he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. He has previously said that he believes the Falkland Islands, a UK overseas territory, belong to Argentina.

At a Mass last year, while Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he said: “We come to pray for all who have fallen, sons of the homeland who went out to defend their mother, the homeland, and to reclaim what is theirs.”

However, relations between him, Ms Kirchner, and her late husband and predecessor as president, Nestor Kirchner, were reported to have been “tense”. While leader of Argentina’s Catholics, the Pope accused her populist government of demagoguery, while she called his position on gay adoptions reminiscent of the “Middle Ages and the Inquisition”.

Speaking yesterday, Ms Kirchner said: “I asked for his intervention to avoid problems that could emerge from the militarisation of Great Britain in the south Atlantic.

“We want a dialogue and that’s why we asked the Pope to intervene, so that the dialogue is successful.”

The president said she recalled how Pope John Paul II averted war in 1978 between Argentina and Chile over three tiny islands in the Beagle Channel at the southern tip of South America.

She said she had asked for Pope Francis’s intercession to “facilitate dialogue” with Britain over the islands. Last night the Vatican did not say if the new pontiff would accept her request to get involved in the dispute.

The request comes just days after a referendum in the Falklands, which saw the islanders vote overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a UK overseas territory.

Prime Minister David Cameron has said he “respectfully” disagreed with the view expressed in the past by Pope Francis that the Falklands had been “usurped” by the UK.

Ms Kirchner said she had presented the Pope with a mate gourd, a traditional drinking vessel, and straw for drinking traditional Argentine tea.

The South American president had given a muted welcome to the Pope’s election. The two have clashed in the past, especially over social reforms promoted by her and her late husband in the face of Church opposition. Mr Kirchner once referred to him as the “head of the opposition”.

l MORE than one million people are expected in Rome today for the installation of the Pope in St Peter’s Square.

The Vatican also released details of Pope Francis’s coat of arms and official ring. He will officially receive the ring and the pallium, a wool stole, during the installation Mass.