Morality Compartmentalized Makes Poor Spiritual Instruction — Pope Francis, the Armenian “Whatever” and Turkey

13 April 2015

Human beings like to compartmentalize ethics — which leads to some conceptually silly confrontations over essentially the same facts

Take Pope Francis’ revivification of the argument over whether butchering 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks was genocide:

Pope Francis on Sunday marked the 100th anniversary of the slaughter of Armenians by calling the massacre by Ottoman Turks "the first genocide of the 20th century" and urging the international community to recognize it as such. Turkey immediately responded by recalling its ambassador and accusing Francis of spreading hatred and "unfounded claims."

Francis issued the pronouncement during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica commemorating the centenary that was attended by Armenian church leaders and President Serge Sarkisian, who praised the pope for calling a spade a spade and "delivering a powerful message to the international community."

"The words of the leader of a church with 1 billion followers cannot but have a strong impact," he told The Associated Press.

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.

Turkey, however, denies a genocide took place. It has insisted that the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Apparently, killing lots of people, for some reasons is okay, being History’s apparently acceptable tumult. But killing others, for other reasons, is not, becoming instead History’s tumult immorally focused.

Somewhere, the more fundamental spiritual message (that killing each other is a bad idea) seems to have gotten lost in our race to assess which victims were most assaulted by someone else’s wrongness.

The Pope’s questionable timing and purpose

Consider this:

Francis defended his words by saying it was his duty to honor the memory of the innocent men, women and children who were "senselessly" murdered by Ottoman Turks.

"Concealing or denying evil is like allowing a wound to keep bleeding without bandaging it," he said.

Which implies that equally large numbers of folks can be “sensibly” murdered by the rest of us.

I have no issue with calling the Armenian slaughter genocide. On the other hand, I see no useful purpose served in making the accusation today, when a Crusades-like flavor has again descended upon Christian and Islamic relations.

Being a pragmatist, I would have preferred that the Pope focus on what is happening now, rather than on what happened then.

Injecting semantic vitriol into past arguments just makes today’s confrontation between Islam and Christianity worse. And, contrary to the Pope’s reported reasoning, does the slaughtered Armenians no useful good.

The moral? — It would have been wiser to focus on current issues and forgo provocative speech about the past

I do not think that Islam sees itself in need a lesson from Catholicism’s Pope. Especially given that the mostly Christian USA has long been on Islamic turf, spreading the American imperialism’s “word” with bullets, missiles and bombs.

Lessons about the horror of genocide seem to emerge most effectively from the descendants of those who committed it. Germany is a good example. The process of acknowledgement takes time and is arguably not assisted by arguably hypocritical pronouncements from outsiders. Especially from a church that is notorious for the evils it once spread and, in some significant instances, still commits and conceals.

Pope Francis might have been more effective, given his stated purpose, by being less provocative. Irritating those whom we wish to teach creates resistance that gets in learning’s way. Speaking to one’s base in an already combative general situation does nothing to further peace.

Why we need to stoke a fire that may kill yet more innocents escapes me.

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Morality Compartmentalized Makes Poor Spiritual Instruction — Pope Francis, the Armenian “Whatever” and Turkey