buenos aires -- He was a Catholic priest who roamed the gulag of secret Argentine detention centers like a kind of spiritual predator.
"The life of men depends on God -- and on your collaboration," Father Christian Federico von Wernich once advised an inmate before betraying the prisoner's trust, according to testimony.
Von Wernich, 69, was sentenced to life in prison this month for crimes against humanity, the first priest convicted of human rights abuses during Latin America's era of military dictatorships and civil wars.
Testimony showed that Von Wernich worked as a police informant for Argentina's 1976-83 military government, using his role as police chaplain to garner information from detainees. He was convicted as a "coauthor" in seven murders, 42 kidnappings and 31 cases of torture.
His ghoulish case has thrown new light on the role of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America during that turbulent time for the church and society. Leftist rebellions challenged priests and bishops caught between the church's traditionally conservative, anti-communist teachings and Vatican II dictates to engage the world.
"The church itself in Latin America was undergoing tremendous changes independent of what was happening in the political arena," said Kenneth P. Serbin, a historian at the University of San Diego, a Catholic institution.
Throughout the region, courageous priests, nuns and lay workers were often staunch advocates for human rights, frequently paying with their lives. That was true even in Argentina, where the church hierarchy enjoyed an unusually close relationship to the thuggish military.
"The army represented for the Argentine church the place where the essence of national identity was guarded," said Loris Zanatta, a professor of Latin American Studies at the University of Bologna in Italy. "There was almost a symbiotic relationship between the church and the military."
Outside Argentina, church hierarchies often earned plaudits for standing up to repression.
The most acclaimed case was that of San Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated in 1980 after imploring the armed forces to "halt the repression" during El Salvador's civil war.
Church leaders in Brazil and Chile, Argentina's largest neighbors, also spoke out against military abuses, despite initial church support for coups in both countries.
