Jorge Bergoglio has never been opposed to women in politics

Statements attributed to him are Internet hoaxes

The statements of Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio against the participation of women in politics are false.

According to communications spread in social networks after the election of Pope Francis, Archbishop of Buenos Aires said in 2007 that "Women are naturally unfit for political office."

As shown by the news agency Aciprensa, this was actually a simple comment by an author with a pseudonym on the website Yahoo Answers.

Aciprensa referred to work done by the author of the blog "Counting Stars", who writes under the pseudonym Elentir, who analyzed the origin of the allegations, showing that were attributed to Cardinal Bergoglio six years ago by a user on the website "Yahoo Answers" who in turn is identified with the pseudonym of "Bumper Crop."

"Bumper Crop" stated that he obtained the statement from the official Argentinian news agency Télam, where there is no record of this information.

Elentir explains, "there is no trace of such statements in the network, except in that quote on the "Yahoo Answers" forum. If the Argentine media had published an official cable from the Télam official news agency containing openly misogynistic statements by an archbishop and not just leftist Argentine media, forums, blogs, etc.., then there would have been greater resonance and it would have started a scandal."

Aciprensa explained that on March 13, the Mexican atheist organization spread on Facebook the false news among its followers, making that picture of the Pope with those false statements be shared thousands of times.

Elentir further explains that the Costa Rican newspaper "El País" echoed the Internet news without having contrasted it with other sources, skipping the most basic journalistic ethics and saying only that it was "a cable attached to the Argentiinian news agency Télam" that was then circulated on the Internet."

The blogger says finally, "these hoaxes not only show the unscrupulousness of their authors when they attack the Catholic Church," but the rapid spread of these lies "shows that some are willing to swallow any hoax that feeds their hatred against Catholics."