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  • Armenians cast close eye on papal mass: Turkey said to discourage po

    Mohave Valley News
    April 12 2015

    Armenians cast close eye on papal mass: Turkey said to discourage
    pope from using term 'genocide'

    Sunday, April 12, 2015 12:22 am


    VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis today will declare a little-known
    10th-century Armenian mystic a doctor of the church, one of the
    highest honors a pope can bestow. More attention, though, is likely to
    be on whether Francis utters the word "genocide" during his homily.

    Francis is marking the 100th anniversary of the killing of an estimated

    1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire by celebrating a Mass in
    the Armenian Catholic rite in St. Peter's Basilica. The Armenian
    patriarch, Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni, will concelebrate and the Mass
    will be attended by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.

    It's a big deal for the Armenians, who in the run-up to the centenary
    have been campaigning for greater recognition that the slaughter
    constituted genocide. It's also a big deal for Turkey, which has long
    denied that the deaths constituted genocide, insisted that the toll
    has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and
    unrest.

    Francis avoided the word on Thursday when he met the visiting Armenian
    church delegation, but said that what transpired 100 years ago
    involved men "who were capable of systematically planning the
    annihilation of their brothers."

    "Let us invoke divine mercy so that for the love of truth and justice,
    we can heal every wound and bring about concrete gestures of peace and
    reconciliation between two nations that are still unable to come to a
    reasonable consensus on this sad event," he said.

    Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by
    Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed
    by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
    Several European countries recognize the massacres as such, though
    Italy and the United States, for example, have avoided using the term
    officially given the importance they place on Turkey as an ally.

    According to reports in the Turkish media, Turkey has been working
    behind the scenes to discourage Francis from uttering the term
    "genocide" and reportedly successfully campaigned to prevent the papal
    Mass from being celebrated on April 24, which is considered the actual
    anniversary of the start of the slaughter.

    Last year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a message of
    condolences to descendants of Armenians killed and said Turkey was
    ready to confront the history of the killings. More recently, Erdogan
    has accused Armenians of not looking for the truth but seeking to
    score points against Turkey, saying numerous calls from Turkey for
    joint research to document precisely what happened had gone
    unanswered.

    The Armenians have found a willing supporter in Francis, who as
    Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was particularly close to the Armenian
    community in Argentina and referred to the "genocide" of Armenians
    three times in his 2010 book, "On Heaven and Earth."

    As pope, Francis provoked Turkish anxiety -- and a minor diplomatic
    incident -- when in June 2013 he told a delegation of Armenian
    Christians that the killing was "the first genocide of the 20th
    century."

    The Vatican spokesman subsequently said the remarks were in no way a
    formal or public declaration and therefore didn't constitute a public
    assertion by the pope that genocide took place.

    But St. John Paul II referred to the "genocide" both before and during
    his 2001 trip to Armenia, even signing an official document with the
    Armenian church leader Catholicos Karekin II noting that that the
    episode "is generally referred to as the first genocide of the 20th
    century."

    Today, Francis will declare the revered mystic St. Gregory of Narek a
    doctor of the church. Only 35 people have been given the title, which
    is reserved for those whose writings have greatly served the universal
    church.

    Gregory, who lived around 950 to 1005, is considered one of the most
    important figures of medieval Armenian religious thought and
    literature. His "Book of Prayers," also called the "Book of
    Lamentations," is his best-known work, a mystical poem in 95 sections
    about "speaking with God from the depths of the heart."


    http://www.mohavedailynews.com/news/armenians-cast-close-eye-on-papal-mass-turkey-said-to/article_ba7e690c-e0e4-11e4-84a1-872e25b83771.html

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