Turkey angered by pope's use of 'G-word’

Cengiz Çandar 

Less than two weeks before the centennial of the Armenian genocide, the leader of the world's billion Catholics made remarks that shocked the Turkish government and gave a dramatic boost to those who believe genocide was committed in 1915. 

Pope Francis offered the comments during his April 12 sermon at St. Peter’s Basilica, attended by Armenian dignitaries including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Catholicos Karekin II, the highest religious authority of the Armenian Apostolic Church. “The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the 20th century, struck your own Armenian people. Bishops and priests, religious women and men, the elderly and even defenseless children and infirm were murdered,” he said.

Does Francis Read Huntington?

Walter Russell Mead

 

Pope Francis set off a diplomatic storm yesterday when he referred to the genocide of the Armenians at a service in St. Peter’s Basilica this weekend. The Turkish Foreign Ministry denounced the remarks as baseless and unfair, and summoned the Vatican’s Turkish representative to appear for a tongue lashing.

By the standards of Vatican diplomacy, this was an explosion. Conscious of the vulnerability of Christian minorities around the world, popes are usually circumspect when touching on controversial diplomatic topics. Francis’ words will certainly provoke a harsh response from Turkey where, despite very slow and painful progress at coming to grips with the legacy of violence and persecution that shaped modern Turkey, it remains illegal to refer to the Armenian massacres as a genocide.

Pope Calls Killings of Armenians ‘Genocide,’ Provoking Turkish Anger

Jim Yardley

Sebnem Arsu

Pope Francis on Sunday, April 12, 2015 described the World War I-era slaughter of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks as the first genocide of the 20th century, igniting a diplomatic confrontation with Turkey, which quickly summoned the Vatican’s ambassador to condemn the pontiff’s remarks and recalled its own ambassador to the Holy See.

Pope Francis Declares St. Gregory of Narek Doctor of the Church

Pope Francis has declared St. Gregory of Narek (Սուրբ Գրիգոր Նարեկացի), celebrated 10th century Armenian mystic and poet, a Doctor of the Universal Church. The Vatican said on February 23, 2015 that the Pope had agreed to bestow the honor on St. Gregory after the proposal made by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Cause of Saints. 

Pope Francis hopes for better ties between Turks, Armenians

Semih Idiz

 

Turkish-Armenian relations were back on the agenda again, if only momentarily, after Pope Francis expressed his “dream” last week of seeing the border between the two countries reopened to contribute to reconciliation between the two estranged nations.

Prospects for the pope’s dream, however, looked dim as Turkish analysts indicated that little progress has been made in resolving the issues that divided the sides. Meanwhile, Ankara is bracing itself against the campaign by the Armenian diaspora in the United States to make 2015 the year when the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 under the Ottoman Turkish government is finally recognized by Washington as genocide.

What Pius XII Learned From the Armenian Genocide

Deborah Castellano Lubov

 

Though historians contest it, Pius XII is still accused of failing to do enough to help the Jews during World War II. In particular, he is criticized for too much silence.

But well-known German historian Michael Hesemann says the Pope's decision to be guarded in protest was a result of what he'd learned some years before, when while working in the Vatican Secretariat of State and as nuncio, he was privy to the Vatican's information on the Armenian genocide and its attempts to stop it.

Protests from Pope Benedict XV and his diplomats only made the situation worse for the Armenians and that was history Pius XII didn't want to repeat, Hesemann explains.

In an interview with Zenit ahead of Pope Francis' Nov. 28-30 trip to Turkey, Hesemann analyzes this massacre, and gives insight into the parallels with the Holocaust and Pius XII's actions during the war.

"First Genocide of 20th Century Was That of Armenians," Says Pope Francis and Upsets Turkey

Pope Francis, during a meeting on June 3 with a delegation led by Nerses Bedros XIX, Catholicos Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenian Catholics at the Vatican, reiterated his earlier recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

During the visit, the pope met with members of the delegation, when one of them said that she was a descendant of genocide victims, to which the pontiff responded, “The first genocide of the 20th Century (*) was that of the Armenians,” thus reiterating his earlier recognition of the Armenian Genocide while he headed the Catholic Church in Buenos Aires as Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio.

Pope Francis on the Armenian Genocide

In 2010 Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the newly-consecrated Pope Francis I, and Argentinean Rabbi Abraham Skorka, director of the Latinamerican Seminary for Rabbis, published a book entitled On Heaven and Earth (“Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra”) that has been issued in English translation by Random House (New York, 2013). The book is a conversation between the two religious leaders that addresses topics such as family, atheists, death, capitalism, and the Holocaust.