Ha’aretz, Israel
April 12 2015
100 years since Armenian slaughter, Pope remembers ‘first genocide of
20th century’
Pope Francis has previous spoken out about the massacre, and has
Turkey to recognize it as ‘the gravest crime’ of the Ottoman Empire;
Turkey cancels Holy See press conference scheduled for Sunday.
Pope Francis on Sunday remembered the 100th anniversary of the
slaughter of Armenians by calling it “the first genocide of the 20th
century,” a politically explosive pronouncement that will certainly
anger Turkey.
Turkey’s embassy to the Holy See had canceled a planned press
conference for Sunday, presumably after learning that the pope would
utter the word “genocide” over its objections.
Francis, who has close ties to the Armenian community from his days in
Argentina, defended his pronouncement by saying it was his duty to
honor the memory of the innocent men, women, children, priests and
bishops who were “senselessly” murdered.
“Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding
without bandaging it,” he said at the start of a Mass Sunday in the
Armenian Catholic rite in St. Peter’s Basilica honoring the centenary.
This was not the first time that the Pope has spoken out over the
Armenia genocide. In 2013, at a meeting with Catholicos Patriarch of
Cilicia of the Armenian Catholics at the Vatican, he declared: “The
first genocide of the 20th century was that of the Armenians.”
In 2006, before he became pontiff, he urged Turkey to recognize the
genocide as the “gravest crime of Ottoman Turkey against the Armenian
people and the entire humanity.”
Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed
by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey however denies that the death constituted genocide, saying that
the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of
civil war and unrest.
Several European countries recognize the massacres as genocide, though
Italy and the United States have avoided using the term officially
given the importance they place on Turkey as an ally.