The word “genocide” was not included in the initial text Pope Francis was to deliver at the Presidential Palace today, Director of the Holy See’s Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi told a press conference in Yerevan.
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Pope Francis is bringing a message of peace and solidarity to Armenia as it marks the centennial of the Ottoman-era slaughter of Armenians that Francis himself has called a “genocide”.
Pope Francis “laid a wreath at the foot of the monument, before a group of children who held banners bearing the names of the martyrs of 1915”, the Vatican said, and he wrote in the visitor’s book at the memorial.
This sparked a diplomatic crisis with Turkey at the time and who don’t consider the Ottoman crimes to be “genocide”, but rather consequences of war.
The Pope, who is due to stay in Armenia, in the southern Caucasus, until next Sunday, expressed his desire for humanity to learn from these tragedies. “This huge and senseless slaughter this tragic mystery of iniquity that your people experienced in the flesh, remains impressed in our memory and burns in our hearts”, he said during evening prayers in the Armenian capital.
Pope Francis said on Friday Britain’s vote to leave the European Union must be followed by “guarantees” for the good of both Britons and countries on the continent.
“Here I pray with pain in my heart, so that never again will there be tragedies like this.May God protect the memory of the Armenian people”.
The Armenian Apostolic Church, whose leader is known as the “Catholicos”, split from Rome over a theological dispute in the fifth century and is part of the Oriental Orthodox Churches.
He said the Armenian people have known persecution and have preserved not only the memory of past harms, but also “the spirit that has enabled them always to start over again”. Memory should never be watered-down or forgotten.
The pontiff prompted a standing ovation on Friday when he labelled what he described as the ideologically warped, planned “genocide” of Armenians beginning in 1915. “Memory is a source of peace and future!” Armenians have long sought global recognition for the killings as genocide, which they say left some 1.5 million of their people dead.
The ANCA will be posting the Vatican’s live coverage of Pope Francis’ public events on its ANCA Facebook page (anca.org/facebook) and its website – anca.org.
John Paul II went there in 2001 to attend celebrations marking 1,700 years of the adoption of Christianity in Armenia, which was the first country to have the faith as its state religion.
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Francis is not the first pope to use the word to refer to the killings.
