Armenian Genocide Centennial: Pope Francis Divine Mercy Sunday Mass

ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CENTENNIAL: POPE FRANCIS DIVINE MERCY SUNDAY MASS TO MARK HISTORIC KILLINGS

International Business Times
April 9 2015

By Lora Moftah

Pope Francis will hold a mass commemorating the centennial of the
Armenian genocide this Sunday, in what will be one of the most
high-profile recent acknowledgments of the historic atrocity by a
major world leader. Ahead of the mass, Francis lamented the lack of
consensus on recognizing the early 20th century mass killings during
a meeting Thursday with Armenian bishops.

The Sunday mass will be held 12 days before the official commemoration
of the genocide’s centennial on April 24. Francis expressed his
hopes that the occasion would help “to hasten concrete gestures of
reconciliation and peace among the nations that have not yet reached
a consensus on the reading of such sorrowful events,” in a statement
reported by Vatican Radio.

An estimated 1.5 million Armenians died after Turks, during the
Ottoman Empire, began forcibly evacuating ethnic minorities in what is
present-day Turkey in 1915. The evacuation campaign is thought to have
wiped out more than half of the Armenian population at the time and
is widely acknowledged as the first genocide of the 20th century. The
Turkish government has strongly rejected this view, arguing that the
number of deaths was inflated and the result of unrest, disease and
famine rather than a deliberate campaign of annihilation.

Acknowledgment of the historic tragedy by public figures around the
world has always been a sensitive undertaking, as they are invariably
met by vocal objections from the Turkish government. As a result,
only a handful of countries officially recognize the atrocity as a
genocide, a word most world leaders steer clear of when discussing
the issue. Ahead of his election to office, President Barack Obama
notably vowed to use the word when describing the killings but has
yet to live up to the campaign promise. Turkey is a NATO member and
an important ally straddling Europe and the Middle East.

Francis himself is no stranger to the controversy, but unlike most
other world leaders, the pontiff has not shied away from publicly
characterizing the killings as a genocide. As a cardinal in Argentina,
Francis led a service of remembrance in Buenos Aires on the 91st
anniversary of the genocide in 2006, during which he called the
killings the “gravest crime of Ottoman Turkey.” Francis’ homeland
of Argentina has significant Armenian and Greek minorities, whose
ancestors migrated from the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I.

In 2013, the newly elected pope provoked a diplomatic rebuke from
Ankara after he told a visiting delegation of Armenian Christians that
the massacre of Armenians by the Ottomans was “the first genocide of
the 20th century.” The comments were welcomed by prominent Armenians
around the world, with the director of the Armenian National Committee
of South America, Alfonso Tabakian, calling them a “very important”
step, as the first such statement from the Catholic leader since his
elevation to the papacy, and a sign that “more states, parliaments
and international organizations are adopting this position against
the denial of history perpetrated by the Turkish State.”

The pope’s April 12 commemoration is just as likely to produce the same
polarized dynamic among the Turkish government, Armenians and other
supporters of genocide recognition. The ecumenical ceremony, which
falls on the Catholic observance of Divine Mercy Sunday, will include
representatives of Armenia’s various Christian communities as well
as Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian. The vast majority of Armenian
Christians follow the country’s Eastern Orthodox Apostolic Church,
although more than 350,000 are members of the Armenian Catholic Church.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress