Pope Francis describes 1915 Armenian slaughter as Genocide

PanARMENIAN.Net - Pope Francis has described the mass killing of Armenians 100 years ago as a Genocide.

During a special mass to mark the centenary of the mass killing, the pontiff referred to “three massive and unprecedented tragedies” of the past century.

“The first, which is widely considered the first genocide of the twentieth century, struck your own Armenian people,” he said, quoting a declaration signed in 2001 by Pope John Paul II and Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, the Guardian reports.

“Bishops and priests, religious women and men, the elderly and even defenseless children and the infirm were murdered,” the pope said.

Turkey swiftly called its ambassador to the Vatican back to Ankara for consultations after the pope’s remarks. Turkey’s foreign ministry also summoned the Vatican’s envoy to Ankara, informing him that the government was “disappointed and saddened” by the pontiff’s comments, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Pope Francis said 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.”

Turkey accused the Vatican of “using history for political aims: by singling out Armenians and not mentioning all lost lives in Anatolia during World War I.” Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the comments were “not fitting of the Pope.”

It wasn’t the first time a pope has called the 1915 deaths genocide. Pope Francis, in referring to “the first genocide of the 20th century,” was quoting a 2001 common declaration by Pope John Paul II and His Holiness Karekin II.

Pope Francis went further than the 2001 declaration, calling the killing of Armenians one of “three massive and unprecedented tragedies” in the 20th century. “The remaining two were perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism,” he said. The latter reference was to the 1932-33 man-made famine in Ukraine, part of Joseph Stalin’s effort to collectivize Soviet agriculture, which killed as many as 7.5 million people.

“Turkey underestimates, at its own risk, the power of our worldwide movement—a profoundly moral movement inspired by truth and driven by our shared hope for a fair and enduring peace based on a just international resolution of the Armenian Genocide,” commented Aram Hamparian,Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director.