I was 23 at the time and saw an English warship with a massive hole in the side from one of Leopoldo Galtieri’s Exocet missiles as I sailed into Portsmouth from France on a ferry. We too lost men in that conflict, and I hope His Holiness will pray for ours too, especially as our Armed Forces were sent to protect folk who explicitly wanted to remain British and asked for help from England.
The Argentinians invaded our turf. They started it. I wonder whether Mrs Thatcher made the Argentinians pay reparations! We too have long memories, and I’m English.
Of course, we should pray for the fallen of both sides. The Argentinian men were obeying orders and did what they were told. War is a horrible business, and there are no winners and losers. Simply, they who sow the wind reap the whirlwind as most warmongers like Hitler found to their discomfort.
The Blue Flower 
I would not be troubled if he had simply thanked the men for doing their duty; but when he calls the British “usurpers,” I am troubled. The people of the Falklands wished to remain British, and most certainly were not at all interested in being placed, at that time, under an Argentinian, tyrannical dictatorship.
I remember 1982 so well, and I was the same age as many of our servicemen who were ordered to go down there. I might have been one of the sailors killed on the HMS Sheffield. As I mentioned, the Argentinians did their duty and we should pray for them, but the Pope (Cardinal Bergoglio as he was when he shot his mouth off) has not to insult my country or our men for doing their duty too, and with right on their side.
As I remember it, the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn’t allow the British to thank God for the victory. They had to say sorry instead.
The Argies are getting up my nose. 98% of our people down there want to be British and they have been there for generations. I bet the Argies wouldn’t even pay compensation!
Vague memories of a cartoon of General Galtieri surveying a map of Australia and New Zealand and observing, “Look–more British Islands!”
Even though I am not a member of this man’s denomination, so much about him leaves a very, very sour taste; theologically, liturgically and politically.
In regards to the Ordinariates, which I have never supported, I think that their time may be up as well; if not actual suppression, a slow and perhaps less than benign neglect. Although I am certain that those who swam the Tiber will try and put a smiling face on all this, I think that it will be increasingly difficult to do so.
I am also very concerned of the media portrayal of him as supporter of the “poor” (One suspects that he dislikes those horrible individuals, like myself, of the middle-class?) and his purported humbleness is tiresome as well, his schtick of kneeling down and asking for the blessings of others might have been cute, but only the first time he did so, again it is now simply tiresome. It all reminds me of when a multi-millionairess married a certain Prince and the media was passing her off, successfully, as a poor child-worker; the “People’s Princess.”
How many times did he actually ride public transportation to work? Once, twice, everyday for thirty years? It seems to be nothing more than media hype.
It could be. The point is that all this really is not our problem. I repeat – neither you nor I are Roman Catholics.
The man has the job. That is not going to change. All of us, press, bloggers, commenters, RCs, non-Rcs, believers, and unbelievers, all of us need to take a step back and watch. What matters is not the things that have past, but what the man will do with the office. If he’s as rotten as some are saying, that will show. If he’s as wonderful as others are saying, that too will manifest. Without a doubt the reality will be somewhere between. Can’t we waut and watch to see how it does turn out? You know, the surest way to keep a man from doing his best is to go on the attack and force him to use his energies in defense. Nothing good happens under those conditions.
Ed, for me, simply his reference to the British protection of an overwhelming British population on a small island group standing up to a foreign invasion and calling such actions as “usurpers” is more than enough to know the man!
My local paper, I live in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic community, is now calling him the “People’s Pope”; and he has referred to traditional worship, as not worship but only a “spectacular.” This coming from an individual who allows a Pinocchio puppet, in its Disneyland incarnation, to dance around the altar.