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Pope commemorates Armenian Genocide centennial, calls it “first genocide of the 20th century”

Pope Francis used the word “genocide” on Sunday (Apr 12) to describe the 1915 mass murder of Armenians.

“In the past century our human family has lived through three massive and unprecedented tragedies. The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the 20th century’, struck your own Armenian people,” he said during a mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica, citing a 2000 statement signed by John Paul II and the Armenian patriarch, AFP reports.

“The first, which is widely considered ‘the first genocide of the 20th century’, struck your own Armenian people,” he said, citing a statement signed by John Paul II and the Armenian patriarch in 2000.

Francis said the other two genocides of the 20th century were “perpetrated by Nazism and Stalinism.”

“And more recently there have been other mass killings, like those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Burundi and Bosnia. It seems that humanity is incapable of putting a halt to the shedding of innocent blood,” he added.

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