AS ARMENIA COMMEMORATES MASSACRES, POPE CALLS FOR HOPE, RECONCILIATION

Catholic New York
April 9 2015

By CAROL GLATZ

In the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, Pope
Francis decried humanity’s ability to systematically exterminate its
own brothers and sisters.

He asked that God’s mercy “help all of us, in the love for the truth
and justice, to heal every wound and expedite concrete gestures of
reconciliation and peace among nations that still are unable to come
to a reasonable consensus on interpreting such sad events.”

The pope’s remarks came during a meeting at the Vatican April 9 with
a group of bishops from the Armenian Catholic synod. The bishops were
in Rome, together with numerous priests, religious and lay faithful,
to take part in a liturgy April 12 that was to be concelebrated by Pope
Francis and Armenian Catholic Patriarch Nerses Bedros XIX Tarmouni.

April 24 will mark the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the
Armenian genocide. An estimated 1.5 million Armenians–more than half
the Armenian population at the time–died in a forced evacuation from
their traditional territory in the Ottoman-Turkish Empire from 1915
to 1918.

Turkey rejects the accusation of genocide, saying the deaths were
due largely to disease and famine.

The Armenian genocide has not received universal recognition. Some
governments, such as Belgium, France, Cyprus, Canada and Russia,
have adopted resolutions affirming events, while others, including
the United States, have not formally recognized the genocide. Papal
speeches and the Vatican have not used the term “genocide” when
referring to the tragedy.

Pope Francis’ written speech to the bishops said the human heart
was capable of “unleashing the darkest forces, capable of going as
far as systematically planning the annihilation of its brother, to
consider him an enemy, an adversary or even someone devoid of the
same human dignity.”

However, “for believers,” reflecting on the evil waged by humankind
leads to “the mystery of the participation in the redemptive Passion”
as many Armenians continued to proclaim their belief in Christ even
to the point of “bloodshed or death caused by starvation in the
interminable exodus they were forced into,” he said.

Pope Francis recalled how Pope Benedict XV intervened by asking the
Sultan Mehmed V “to end the massacres of the Armenians.”

He also noted “with sadness” how those who survived the forced
expulsions 100 years ago flooded to neighboring regions, which today
are seeing their Christian presence put into danger once again.

The suffering of the Armenian people in a certain sense is an extension
of Christ’s passion, he said, and as such gives way to the hope and
joy of his resurrection.

It is up to Armenian Catholic leaders to help the faithful “know how to
read reality with new eyes” and be able to not just remember the past,
but to draw from it new energy “to nourish the present with the joyous
proclamation of the Gospel and with the witness of charity,” he said.

The pope noted how Armenia is considered the first country to have
accepted Christianity as its state religion in 301 A.D. and how it
has been able to pick itself up again “after so much persecution
and trials.”

He invited the Armenian community always to look to the Lord and “to
ask God for the gift of the wisdom of heart; the commemoration of the
victims 100 years ago places us, in fact, before the shadows of the
‘mysterium iniquitatis’ (the mystery of evil).”

–CNS

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From: A. Papazian