OPINION:
The recent visit by Pope Leo to Turkey, while framed as a mission of peace and interfaith dialogue, has sent a wave of profound disappointment and pain through the Armenian American community.
For descendants of the 1915 Armenian genocide, like me, this visit felt like a tacit endorsement of denial, as it was absent any forceful demand for historical truth about a crime Turkey continues to deny to this day. Armenian Americans were also visibly upset when Leo visited Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Although Ataturk is revered in Turkey as the founder of the modern republic, he is also inextricably linked to the killings of 1.5 million Armenians and the subsequent systematic destruction of the survivors’ ancestral homeland in western Armenia or eastern Turkey.
The timing of Leo’s visit took place as Turkey’s key ally, Azerbaijan, continues its persecution of Armenian Christians. Since the forced displacement of 120,000 ethnic Armenians from their ancestral homeland of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in September 2023, Azerbaijan has destroyed and defaced hundreds of Armenian churches, monasteries, khachkars (cross-stone monuments) and other religious sites in an attempt to wipe out any Armenian existence in the region.
The pontiff was uniquely positioned to leverage his relationship with Turkey to apply any behind-the-scenes diplomacy into a forceful public appeal. To merely offer prayer and quiet support when faced with ethnic cleansing and the destruction of Christian history was a missed opportunity.
The Vatican cannot preach coexistence and tolerance and then turn a blind eye to governments that have no respect for human rights or the rule of law. Anything short of that is a failure of the Vatican’s moral and spiritual leadership on the world stage.
STEPHAN PECHDIMALDJI
San Ramon, California
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