12 april, 2015
Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-calls-armenian-slaughter-first-genocide-of-20th-century-1428824472
Pope Francis Calls Armenian Deaths ‘First Genocide of 20th Century’: The Wall Street Journal
ROME—Pope Francis
on Sunday referred to the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Turks as
the “first genocide of the 20th century,” entering into a tense
historical debate with wider implications for the Vatican’s relations
with Turkey and Islam.
With the statement, during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to mark 100 years since the killings, the pope linked the event to contemporary persecution of Christians in the Muslim world, effectively turning the occasion into his latest denunciation of attacks on Christians by Muslim groups, including the April 2 killings at a university in Kenya.
Armenians say as many as 1.5 million Armenians were systematically killed during World War I in today’s eastern Turkey, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.
Many countries officially recognize the killings as genocide. But Turkey contests Armenian claims about the scale of losses; it argues that hundreds of thousands actually died in warfare and famine, and that many Turks were also killed by Armenians. Turkey argues that the question of genocide should be left to historians rather than politicians.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican’s envoy to Ankara following the pope’s comments, according to a Turkish official. The ministry will issue a statement later on Sunday, the official said, without providing additional details about the meeting with the Vatican representative.
Pope Francis said on Sunday that “it is necessary, and indeed a duty” to “recall the centenary of that tragic event, that immense and senseless slaughter whose cruelty your forbears had to endure...Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it.”
Source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-calls-armenian-slaughter-first-genocide-of-20th-century-1428824472
Pope Francis Calls Armenian Deaths ‘First Genocide of 20th Century’: The Wall Street Journal
Pronouncement could test Vatican’s relationship with Turkey
With the statement, during a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican to mark 100 years since the killings, the pope linked the event to contemporary persecution of Christians in the Muslim world, effectively turning the occasion into his latest denunciation of attacks on Christians by Muslim groups, including the April 2 killings at a university in Kenya.
Armenians say as many as 1.5 million Armenians were systematically killed during World War I in today’s eastern Turkey, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.
Many countries officially recognize the killings as genocide. But Turkey contests Armenian claims about the scale of losses; it argues that hundreds of thousands actually died in warfare and famine, and that many Turks were also killed by Armenians. Turkey argues that the question of genocide should be left to historians rather than politicians.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Vatican’s envoy to Ankara following the pope’s comments, according to a Turkish official. The ministry will issue a statement later on Sunday, the official said, without providing additional details about the meeting with the Vatican representative.
Pope Francis said on Sunday that “it is necessary, and indeed a duty” to “recall the centenary of that tragic event, that immense and senseless slaughter whose cruelty your forbears had to endure...Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it.”
