I suspect he may quietly harbor some liberationist tendencies of his own. What he called for was that right wing bugbear, redistriburion of wealth. His vocabulary might not be Boff's and Gutierrez's, still less Hugo Chavez's, but that won't matter if he gets thr job done.

The gospel is not free of all tension: it simultaneously asks us to be perfect, yet teaches us we will never be perfect; it tells us straight-forwardly to distribute all our wealth to the poor and warns that camels more easily pass through the eyes of needles than the rich find their way into the True Kingdom, but it also says that its actual demands and light and easy and that everything is possible

I see no simple-minded way to resolve such tensions between the preferential option for the poor and the universality of the church: failure to recognize this tension will only produce lop-sided dogma and lop-sided praxis

I very much like the liberation theologians, because they showed me I could read these old religious texts productively, without committing myself to a certain fundamentalist metaphysic, that I have always found alienating and abhorrent. And I probably don't share much of a common understanding of Christianity with anyone who regards the liberation theologians as mere trash-talkers. But it also seems to me inappropriate to dismiss everyone who fails to agree with various liberation theologians enthusiastically and entirely on every single point: whether we're right or wrong, we usually have some moral obligation to bear in mind the possibility that we may be wrong and that others with whom we disagree may be right; and not knowing exactly what Bergoglio say regarding liberation theology, it seems to be appropriate not to characterize it as "violent opposition"

The words came to me from a Latin American priest who followed first hand
Francis' relationship to the oligarchy which ran Argentina. My hope is that the awareness that a Pope stands in a very different place may result in a the alteration of a previous posture. So I reserve judgment and give him the benefit of the doubt.

Re-read your defense of the latest pope. He notes that celibacy isn't a matter of faith. Really? No shit. It is as the latest pope says, a matter of discipline. From that many of you have taken the huge leap to the conclusion that this pope is not a hugely conservative misogynist homophobe like all the others. Good luck with that.

the "intellectual brilliance" of a young woman, and indeed finding the experience forced him to question his vocation; next he said he thought a married person could still be a good priest

It seems to me plausible that the current RCC demand for celibacy for most priests (excepting a few who migrate to the RCC from other traditions, after marriage) may allow or even encourage some misogyny, but that doesn't imply every priest is a misogynist. It also seems to me plausible that allowing priests to marry might change attitudes, since then priests would experience life with their wives and daughters, and I would expect that real misogynists would take a hard line against allowing priests to marry

that "intellectually brilliant" young woman could be a good priest? Will he EVER say that a woman of any kind can EVER be a priest in the RCC?

No.

That many of the Liberation Theologians became Marxists. For any political conservative -- such as Pope Francis -- that is enough to damn them.

Or do we have only second- or third- or fourth-hand summaries of what he said?

Of course, as a Catholic priest, or provincial, or bishop, or archbishop, or pope, he is unlikely to endorse entirely any non-Catholic ideological view, most especially if the ideology requires commitment to atheism: in particular, dogmatic Marxism is unlikely to appeal to him. OTOH that is not the same as the "damn them" stance you suggest:

I hope the Holy Ghost moves him to the progressive side of the church.