FEUD ERUPTS OVER POPE’S ‘GENOCIDE’ DECLARATION; TURKEY PULLS VATICAN AMBASSADOR IN RESPONSE

National Post (Canada)
April 13, 2015 Monday
National Edition

by: Joseph Brean, National Post

Turkey has accused Pope Francis of promoting hatred by declaring the
slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks a century ago was genocide
on a scale with Nazism and Stalinism.

The killings in the last days of the Ottoman Empire were not simply
part of the broader violence of First World War, but a calculated
effort to exterminate a race, “the first genocide of the 20th century,”
Francis said in a Vatican mass on Sunday to mark the centenary. He
urged other world leaders to recognize it as such, and to prevent
similar atrocities “without ceding to ambiguity or compromise.”

Failing to call genocide by its name creates a climate in which it
becomes easier, Francis said, and urged Catholics to heed the “muffled
and forgotten cry of so many of our defenceless brothers and sisters
who, on account of their faith in Christ or their ethnic origin,
are publicly and ruthlessly put to death – decapitated, crucified,
burned alive – or forced to leave their homeland.”

The claim that Ottoman Turks conducted genocide against Armenians is
not new, even for a pope. Francis himself cited a statement made by
Pope John Paul II in 2001, when he prayed at an Armenian memorial,
comparing the victims to the Biblical Abel, murdered by his brother
Cain, who denied it.

And Francis, formerly an Argentine cardinal, has made similar comments
to the large Armenian diaspora in Argentina.

But Francis has become a pontiff who is admired even by non-Catholics
for speaking blunt truths, which seem somehow different and deeper
when he expresses them from his high office.

“He is living dangerously,” said Donald Boisvert, chair of religion
at Concordia University. “He certainly puts himself in vulnerable
positions where he knows that he is making enemies.”

When he visited Israel a year ago and entered the West Bank, for
example, he made sure to refer to it as the “state of Palestine.”

Likewise, the most famous comment of his papacy – “If a person is gay
and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” – was delivered
off the cuff to journalists on a plane. He was even lavishly praised
last year for acknowledging the truth of evolution and the Big Bang,
which have long been accepted in Catholicism.

His remarks on Sunday were significant, though. They were made in
a mass in the Armenian rite at St. Peter’s Basilica, on the 100th
anniversary of the genocide, and in the presence of Serzh Sargsyan,
President of Armenia, who later praised Francis for “calling things
by their names.”

“It’s consistent with the man’s style,” Boisvert said, citing examples
of Francis’s efforts at moral suasion in pursuit of justice, and
contrasting him to Pius XII, whose inaction during the Holocaust has
drawn great criticism. “He’s a very forthright, honest and direct
man who also knows full well what he’s saying.”

Turkey was outraged. As the state that succeeded the Ottoman Empire,
it does not deny the violence, in which more than a million people
were killed by murder, forced labour and death marches, but strongly
denies it had a genocidal purpose.

Canada formally acknowledged the genocide in 2004, for example, and
as recently as 2013 a Turkish ambassador to Ottawa said it remains
an obstacle to trade.

In response to the Pope’s comments, Turkey’s embassy to the Vatican
cancelled a planned news conference. In the Turkish capital Ankara,
diplomats summoned the Vatican ambassador to express displeasure,
and released a statement expressing “great disappointment and sadness.”

“The Pope’s statement, which is out of touch with both historical
facts and legal basis, is simply unacceptable,” Foreign Minister
Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted. “Religious offices are not places through
which hatred and animosity are fuelled by unfounded allegations.”

Richard Rymarz, professor of Catholic religious education at St.

Joseph’s College at the University of Alberta, said the declaration
fits with Francis’s recent emphasis on the persecution of Christians,
such as the recent terrorist murders of Copts in Libya and Christian
students in Kenya.

Armenia holds a special place in the Christian historical imagination,
as the first nation to officially adopt Christianity as a state
religion in 301 AD, beating the Roman Empire by almost a century.

“By drawing attention to (the Armenian genocide), I think Francis is
underlying that broader concern he has that Christians all over the
world today, and in the past, are suffering for their faith,” he said.

“I think he’s doing this quite deliberately … He’s not just shooting
off at the mouth. I think that he realizes that he can use the media
to promote things that are close to his heart.”

He noted that Francis was recently in Turkey and did not make similar
comments then, which “would have been catastrophic.”

Rymarz also suggested Francis has been inspired by the decision of
his predecessor Benedict XVI to break with centuries of tradition
and resign rather than die in office. It was a pioneering decision
that altered the role of the papacy, emphasizing the office over its
occupant, he said. Francis has openly said he expects his own papacy
to be short, and even hinted he might also consider resignation.

“One of consequences could be that popes do act with a bit more
urgency,” Rymarz said. “There may be a touch of that in Francis’s
papacy.”

National Post jbrean@nationalpost.com Twitter.com/JosephBrean
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GRAPHIC: Gregorio Borgia, The Associated Press; Pope Francis is
greeted by the head of Armenia’s Orthodox Church Karekin II, right,
during a mass on Sunday, marking 100 years since one million Armenians
were killed by by Ottoman Turks. Turkish leaders dispute the genocide
label.;