Turkey Officials Outraged By Pope's Use of Word "Genocide"

On Sunday, the 100th Anniversary of the occurrence, Pope Francis sparked anger and outrage from the Turkish people after using the term "genocide" to describe the mass killings of the Armenians by the Ottomans.

"In the past century, our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies," the Pope said at a Mass at St. Peter's Basilica to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian massacres.

Just hours after the Pope's speech, Turkey recalled its ambassador to the Vatican for so-called "consultations". Turkey's anger over the situation is not particularly surprising, as the nature of the Armenian genocide is, said safely, a sore subject.

Turkey stated that this does not mean an end of diplomatic relations with the Vatican, it was simply a matter of discussion. However, in a series of tweets on Sunday, Turkey's Foreign Minister stated;

The Pope's statement, which is out of touch with both historical facts and legal basis, is simply unacceptable. +++
— Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (@MevlutCavusoglu) April 12, 2015

Religious offices are not places through which hatred and animosity are fueled by unfounded allegations.
— Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (@MevlutCavusoglu) April 12, 2015

The sad truth of the matter is that, while Turkey is unsurprisingly angry, they have little right to be. Scholars have concluded after massive studies that within the final years of the Ottoman Empire, the turks planned and carried out the murder of over one million ethnic Armenians.

Turkey's standpoint is that there was no genocide, but instead hundreds of thousands of Armenians died from collateral damage in World War 1. While that would be better for the public-relations of Turkey, it is not backed by history.

Genocide is, sadly, far more common than the average person tends to realize. From Nazi Germany, to the Japanese slaughter of the Chinese, to Rwanda, and early America. While we try to wash our hands of guilt we must remember that it is easy to write off issues such as this as irrelevant, we must remember that, although most of us are not Nazi German citizens, we are all one race of human despite country or culture. Monstrosities like genocide take a collective species to recognize them for what they are and move forward to avoid such issues in the future.

"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason." -Mark Twain