Vatican statement: religious violence is ‘particularly heinous’

February 03, 2016

At the conclusion of Pope Francis’s February 3 general audience, Rinaldo Mirmara, a historian and president of Caritas Turkey, presented the Pope with a copy of his new history of the Battle of the Dardanelles (1657), which took place during the Fifth Ottoman-Venetian War.

The action led the Holy See Press Office to issue a statement acknowledging “the repeated commitment of Turkey to make its archives available to historians and researchers of interested parties in order to arrive jointly at a better understanding of historical events and the pain and suffering endured by all parties.”

The statement added:

The memory of the suffering and pain of both the distant and the more recent past, as in the case of the assassination of Taha Carim, Ambassador of Turkey to the Holy See, in June 1977, at the hands of a terrorist group, urges us also to acknowledge the suffering of the present and to condemn all acts of violence and terrorism, which continue to cause victims today. Particularly heinous and offensive is violence and terrorism committed in the name of God or religion.

 

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Further information:

• L’Udienza Generale, 03.02.2016 (Holy See Press Office)
• Pope receives book about 1657 battle involving Papal fleet (Vatican Radio)