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April 12 2015
Pope calls Armenian killings 100 years ago 'genocide'
USA Today, USAToday.com 10 a.m. EDT April 12, 2015
Pope Francis has called the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians
the "first genocide of the 20th century."
Pope Francis has called the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians
the "first genocide of the 20th century."
The pontiff was speaking Sunday at the beginning of a Mass in the Armenia
n Catholic rite in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, attended by
dignitaries including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to mark 100
years since the start of the killings.
"In the past century our human family has lived through three massive
and unprecedented tragedies," Francis said, in a message to the
Armenian faithful.
"The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide of the
twentieth century,' struck your own Armenian people, the first
Christian nation, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians,
Chaldeans and Greeks," he said, citing a September 2001 declaration
signed by St. John Paul II and Armenian church leader Karenkin II that
described the deaths as genocide.
The pontiff also referred to the Holocaust and Stalinism, and mass
killings in countries including Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.
Armenians have long campaigned for recognition that the killings,
which happened between 1915 and 1917 under the rule of the Ottoman
Empire, constituted genocide.
Armenia -- which formally marks the killings on April 24 -- and a number
of historians say up to 1.5 million people died.
The pope's words risk straining relations with Turkey, which denies
the killings were genocide and argues that the number of deaths have
been inflated, and the people who died were victims of civil war and
unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey's foreign ministry said it has summoned the Vatican's Ankara
envoy to express its unease following the pope's remarks, the
Associated Press reported.
In a message to all Armenians, the pope said: "A century has passed
since that horrific massacre which was a true martyrdom of your
people, in which many innocent people died as confessors and martyrs
for the name of Christ.
"Even today, there is not an Armenian family untouched by the loss of
loved ones due to that tragedy: it truly was Metz Yeghern, the 'Great
Evil', as it is known by Armenians."
The killings are recognized as genocide by a number of countries
around the world, but Turkey's allies Italy and the United States have
avoided using the contentious term, which the United Nations has
defined as acts intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or
religious group, in whole or in part.
The pope also pronounced St. Gregory of Narek -- a 10th-century
Armenian monk and mystic -- a doctor of the church, a title which has
been given to just 35 other people.
http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/2015/04/12/pope-armenia/25669679/
April 12 2015
Pope calls Armenian killings 100 years ago 'genocide'
USA Today, USAToday.com 10 a.m. EDT April 12, 2015
Pope Francis has called the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians
the "first genocide of the 20th century."
Pope Francis has called the slaughter of up to 1.5 million Armenians
the "first genocide of the 20th century."
The pontiff was speaking Sunday at the beginning of a Mass in the Armenia
n Catholic rite in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, attended by
dignitaries including Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, to mark 100
years since the start of the killings.
"In the past century our human family has lived through three massive
and unprecedented tragedies," Francis said, in a message to the
Armenian faithful.
"The first, which is widely considered 'the first genocide of the
twentieth century,' struck your own Armenian people, the first
Christian nation, as well as Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Assyrians,
Chaldeans and Greeks," he said, citing a September 2001 declaration
signed by St. John Paul II and Armenian church leader Karenkin II that
described the deaths as genocide.
The pontiff also referred to the Holocaust and Stalinism, and mass
killings in countries including Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia.
Armenians have long campaigned for recognition that the killings,
which happened between 1915 and 1917 under the rule of the Ottoman
Empire, constituted genocide.
Armenia -- which formally marks the killings on April 24 -- and a number
of historians say up to 1.5 million people died.
The pope's words risk straining relations with Turkey, which denies
the killings were genocide and argues that the number of deaths have
been inflated, and the people who died were victims of civil war and
unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey's foreign ministry said it has summoned the Vatican's Ankara
envoy to express its unease following the pope's remarks, the
Associated Press reported.
In a message to all Armenians, the pope said: "A century has passed
since that horrific massacre which was a true martyrdom of your
people, in which many innocent people died as confessors and martyrs
for the name of Christ.
"Even today, there is not an Armenian family untouched by the loss of
loved ones due to that tragedy: it truly was Metz Yeghern, the 'Great
Evil', as it is known by Armenians."
The killings are recognized as genocide by a number of countries
around the world, but Turkey's allies Italy and the United States have
avoided using the contentious term, which the United Nations has
defined as acts intended to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or
religious group, in whole or in part.
The pope also pronounced St. Gregory of Narek -- a 10th-century
Armenian monk and mystic -- a doctor of the church, a title which has
been given to just 35 other people.
http://www.wtsp.com/story/news/2015/04/12/pope-armenia/25669679/