Pueblo Chieftain
April 11 2015

Will pope say ‘genocide’ at Armenian Mass?

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday 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.

On Sunday, 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.