“POPE FRANCIS HAS TORN THE VEIL ON THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE”

The Pilot
April 15 2015

On: 4/15/2015,
By Salvatore Cernuzio

Rome (ZENIT) — One hundred years are not enough to forget, especially
if it is about a massacre such as the “Great Evil” that profoundly
affected the Armenian people at the beginning of the 20thcentury,
exterminating 1.5 million men, women, children and families.

Vatican expert, Franca Giansoldati knows it well. A journalist for
the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, recently authored a new book
entitled “La Marcia Senza Ritorno: Il Genocidio Armeno (The March
without Return. The Armenian Genocide).

Giansoldati, who spent years of study and research for the new book,
even shed tears as she went deeper into the details of the cruel event
which still remains a gap in history. In an interview with ZENIT,
Giansoldati speaks on her work, which was also ‘blessed’ by the Pope,
and explains the reason for the troubled reactions of Turkey to the
Pontiff’s words last Sunday regarding what was, to all intents and
purposes, “the first genocide of the 20thcentury.”

* * *

ZENIT: The Pope said the word “genocide.” And this marks a turn in
the history of the papacy and of the Vatican, notwithstanding that St.

John Paul II already pronounced this word in the “Joint Declaration”
with Karekin II of 2001. In your opinion, how is Francis’ gesture
interpreted, as a hazard or a courageous move?