Argentina’s Armenian community has welcomed the election of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as new Pope.
As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio attended the community’s events, particularly those held in commemoration of Armenian Genocide victims.
He has always been Armenian community’s friend despite the difference between Catholic and Apostolic traditions. Both church hierarchies served a liturgy in memory of Genocide victims during the visit of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians.
Seven years ago the archbishop publicly demanded that Turkey admit the Ottoman-era Genocide of Armenians.
The Vatican used the term genocide to describe the massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in an official communiqué in 2000, under Pope John Paul II.
