Pope Francis visits Armenia, calls 1915 massacre a 'genocide'

Pope Francis, on the second day of his trip to Armenia, made an early Saturday morning stop at the Tzitzernakaberd, the "Genocide Memorial and Museum."

|
(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
Pope Francis kisses the Holy Book as he visits the Apostolic Cathedral of Etchmiadzin, Yerevan, Armenia, Friday, June 24, 2016. Pope Francis is in Armenia for a three-day visit.

A somber Pope Francis, "with pain in my heart," paid tribute on Saturday to the 1.5 million Armenians massacred in 1915, an event which he has labeled a genocide, risking Turkey's ire.

Francis, on the second day of his trip to Armenia, made an early morning stop at the Tzitzernakaberd, the "Genocide Memorial and Museum," a towering granite needle flanked by an eternal flame on a hillside overlooking the Armenian capital.

There, visibly moved, he took part in a prayer service along with President Serzh Sarksyan and leaders of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

"Here I pray, with pain in my heart, so that never again will there be tragedies like this, so that humanity does not forget and knows how to overcome evil with good," he wrote in the guest book in Italian.

On Friday night in a speech to the president, the government and diplomats, Francis departed from his prepared text to use the word "genocide," a description that infuriated Turkey when he said it a year ago.

Francis used the Armenian term 'Metz Yeghern' (the great evil), but then added to his prepared text "that genocide" to refer to what he also called "the first of the deplorable series of catastrophes of the past century."

As of Saturday morning there was no official reaction from Turkey, which last year recalled its ambassador to the Vatican after the pope used the 'genocide' term. The envoy was kept away for 10 months.

Turkey accepts many Christian Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with Ottoman forces during World War One, but contests the figures and denies the killings were systematically orchestrated and constitute a genocide. It also says many Muslim Turks perished at that time.

"There is no reason not to use this word in this case," Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told reporters on Friday night. "The reality is clear and we never denied what the reality is."

At the Saturday morning ceremony, Francis chatted with descendants of Armenian orphans who were sheltered at the papal summer residence south of Rome at the start of the 20th century.

"May God grant the beloved Armenian people and the entire world peace and consolation. May God protect the memory of the Armenian people. Memory should not be diluted or forgotten. Memory is a source of peace and the future," he wrote in the guest book.

After the memorial service the pope flew to say a Mass in the provincial city of Gyumri, near the border with Turkey and within sight of Mount Ararat, where the Bible says Noah's Ark landed after the Great Flood. (Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Mark Potter)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Pope Francis visits Armenia, calls 1915 massacre a 'genocide'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2016/0625/Pope-Francis-visits-Armenia-calls-1915-massacre-a-genocide
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe