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Vatican Radio
April 12 2015
Pope Francis: greetings to Armenian pilgrims
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis greeted the pilgrim faithful of Armenia
gathered in St. Peter's Basilica for Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday,
during which the Armenian monk and mystic, St. Gregory of Narek, was
proclaimed Doctor of the Church and the centenary of the mass killing
of Armenians - as many as 1.5 million people - under the Ottoman
Empire was remembered. Below, please find the official English
translation of the Holy Father's remarks.
***************
Greeting of the Holy Father
Mass for the Faithful of the Armenian Rite
12 April 2015
On a number of occasions I have spoken of our time as a time of war, a
third world war which is being fought piecemeal, one in which we daily
witness savage crimes, brutal massacres and senseless destruction.
Sadly, today too we hear the muffled and forgotten cry of so many of
our defenceless brothers and sisters who, on account of their faith in
Christ or their ethnic origin, are publicly and ruthlessly put to
death ` decapitated, crucified, burned alive ` or forced to leave
their homeland.
Today too we are experiencing a sort of genocide created by general
and collective indifference, by the complicit silence of Cain, who
cries out: `What does it matter to me? Am I my brother's keeper?' (cf.
Gen 4:9; Homily in Redipuglia, 13 September 2014).
In the past century our human family has lived through three massive
and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered
`the first genocide of the twentieth century' (JOHN PAUL II and
KAREKIN II, Common Declaration, Etchmiadzin, 27 September 2001),
struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation, as well
as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Greeks.
Bishops and priests, religious, women and men, the elderly and even
defenceless children and the infirm were murdered. The remaining two
were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism. And more recently there
have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi
and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt to
the shedding of innocent blood. It seems that the enthusiasm
generated at the end of the Second World War has dissipated and is now
disappearing. It seems that the human family has refused to learn
from its mistakes caused by the law of terror, so that today too there
are those who attempt to eliminate others with the help of a few and
with the complicit silence of others who simply stand by. We have not
yet learned that `war is madness', `senseless slaughter' (cf. Homily
in Redipuglia, 13 September 2014).
Dear Armenian Christians, today, with hearts filled with pain but at
the same time with great hope in the risen Lord, we recall the
centenary of that tragic event, that immense and senseless slaughter
whose cruelty your forebears had to endure. It is necessary, and
indeed a duty, to honour their memory, for whenever memory fades, it
means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing or denying evil
is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it!
I greet you with affection and I thank you for your witness.
With gratitude for his presence, I greet Mr Serž Sargsyan, the
President of the Republic of Armenia.
My cordial greeting goes also to my brother Patriarchs and Bishops:
His Holiness Kerekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians; His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of
Cilicia, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX, Patriarch of Cilicia of
Armenian Catholics; and Catholicosates of the Armenian Apostolic
Church and the Patriarchate of the Armenian Catholic Church.
In the firm certainty that evil never comes from God, who is
infinitely good, and standing firm in faith, let us profess that
cruelty may never be considered God's work and, what is more, can find
absolutely no justification in his Holy Name. Let us continue this
celebration by fixing our gaze on Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,
victor over death and evil!
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/04/12/pope_francis_greetings_to_armenian_pilgrims/1136211
April 12 2015
Pope Francis: greetings to Armenian pilgrims
(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis greeted the pilgrim faithful of Armenia
gathered in St. Peter's Basilica for Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday,
during which the Armenian monk and mystic, St. Gregory of Narek, was
proclaimed Doctor of the Church and the centenary of the mass killing
of Armenians - as many as 1.5 million people - under the Ottoman
Empire was remembered. Below, please find the official English
translation of the Holy Father's remarks.
***************
Greeting of the Holy Father
Mass for the Faithful of the Armenian Rite
12 April 2015
On a number of occasions I have spoken of our time as a time of war, a
third world war which is being fought piecemeal, one in which we daily
witness savage crimes, brutal massacres and senseless destruction.
Sadly, today too we hear the muffled and forgotten cry of so many of
our defenceless brothers and sisters who, on account of their faith in
Christ or their ethnic origin, are publicly and ruthlessly put to
death ` decapitated, crucified, burned alive ` or forced to leave
their homeland.
Today too we are experiencing a sort of genocide created by general
and collective indifference, by the complicit silence of Cain, who
cries out: `What does it matter to me? Am I my brother's keeper?' (cf.
Gen 4:9; Homily in Redipuglia, 13 September 2014).
In the past century our human family has lived through three massive
and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered
`the first genocide of the twentieth century' (JOHN PAUL II and
KAREKIN II, Common Declaration, Etchmiadzin, 27 September 2001),
struck your own Armenian people, the first Christian nation, as well
as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians, Chaldeans and Greeks.
Bishops and priests, religious, women and men, the elderly and even
defenceless children and the infirm were murdered. The remaining two
were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism. And more recently there
have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi
and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt to
the shedding of innocent blood. It seems that the enthusiasm
generated at the end of the Second World War has dissipated and is now
disappearing. It seems that the human family has refused to learn
from its mistakes caused by the law of terror, so that today too there
are those who attempt to eliminate others with the help of a few and
with the complicit silence of others who simply stand by. We have not
yet learned that `war is madness', `senseless slaughter' (cf. Homily
in Redipuglia, 13 September 2014).
Dear Armenian Christians, today, with hearts filled with pain but at
the same time with great hope in the risen Lord, we recall the
centenary of that tragic event, that immense and senseless slaughter
whose cruelty your forebears had to endure. It is necessary, and
indeed a duty, to honour their memory, for whenever memory fades, it
means that evil allows wounds to fester. Concealing or denying evil
is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it!
I greet you with affection and I thank you for your witness.
With gratitude for his presence, I greet Mr Serž Sargsyan, the
President of the Republic of Armenia.
My cordial greeting goes also to my brother Patriarchs and Bishops:
His Holiness Kerekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All
Armenians; His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of
Cilicia, His Beatitude Nerses Bedros XIX, Patriarch of Cilicia of
Armenian Catholics; and Catholicosates of the Armenian Apostolic
Church and the Patriarchate of the Armenian Catholic Church.
In the firm certainty that evil never comes from God, who is
infinitely good, and standing firm in faith, let us profess that
cruelty may never be considered God's work and, what is more, can find
absolutely no justification in his Holy Name. Let us continue this
celebration by fixing our gaze on Jesus Christ, risen from the dead,
victor over death and evil!
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/04/12/pope_francis_greetings_to_armenian_pilgrims/1136211