{"id":4258,"date":"2006-12-03T13:16:42","date_gmt":"2006-12-03T13:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html"},"modified":"2006-12-03T13:16:42","modified_gmt":"2006-12-03T13:16:42","slug":"more-turkey-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html","title":{"rendered":"More Turkey Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Allen’s interview with the Armenian Patriarch<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Though Benedict indeed spared no effort to send positive signals to the Turks, his more immediate sensitivity in his meeting with the Armenians was actually for someone else \u2013 the Armenians themselves, and especially their leader, Patriarch Mesrob II.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been a huge headache for us,\u201d Mesrob II told NCR<\/em> in Istanbul shortly after his meeting with the pope, referring to the prospect of Benedict XVI inflaming Turkish sentiment by using the term \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mesrob said doing so would have thrown his community of perhaps 60,000, the largest Christian community in Turkey but still a tiny minority in a nation of some 72 million, into tumult, potentially making them targets for a nationalist backlash.<\/p>\n

Benedict XVI could have gone home after setting off such a rhetorical bomb, Mesrob II suggested, but the Armenians would have been left behind to deal with the aftermath.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There has been conversation about this, as with other matters, and with all of it, I think it’s safe to assume that on a minefield-laced trip like this, very little is left to chance. If the Pope is going to speak in the presence of the Armenian Christians in Turkey, I think we can guess that His People ran things by Their People, to the effect of "Tell us how to refer to this in the way that will help you the most."  The interview confirms this:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

In the event, neither Mesrob for Benedict used the word \u201cgenocide\u201d or its Armenian equivalent, Metz Yeghern<\/em>, meaning roughly \u201cmalice.\u201d Mesrob said he called Vatican officials prior to the pope\u2019s visit, and both sides agreed to use only indirect language.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Allen also pulls together all of Benedict’s references to religious freedom in his statements in Turkey.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Allen’s interview with the Armenian Patriarch Though Benedict indeed spared no effort to send positive signals to the Turks, his more immediate sensitivity in his meeting with the Armenians was actually for someone else \u2013 the Armenians themselves, and especially their leader, Patriarch Mesrob II. \u201cIt would have been a huge headache for us,\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nMore Turkey Notes - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More Turkey Notes - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"John Allen’s interview with the Armenian Patriarch Though Benedict indeed spared no effort to send positive signals to the Turks, his more immediate sensitivity in his meeting with the Armenians was actually for someone else \u2013 the Armenians themselves, and especially their leader, Patriarch Mesrob II. \u201cIt would have been a huge headache for us,\u201d…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-03T13:16:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"More Turkey Notes - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"More Turkey Notes - Via Media","og_description":"John Allen’s interview with the Armenian Patriarch Though Benedict indeed spared no effort to send positive signals to the Turks, his more immediate sensitivity in his meeting with the Armenians was actually for someone else \u2013 the Armenians themselves, and especially their leader, Patriarch Mesrob II. \u201cIt would have been a huge headache for us,\u201d…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-12-03T13:16:42+00:00","author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html","name":"More Turkey Notes - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"datePublished":"2006-12-03T13:16:42+00:00","dateModified":"2006-12-03T13:16:42+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/more-turkey-notes.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"More Turkey Notes"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}