IN 1915 Pope Benedict XV wrote to Mehmed V, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, saying that he could hear “the echo of the groans of an entire people…subjected to unspeakable sufferings”. When the two leaders'modern-day counterparts met last November at the Turkish presidential palace outside Ankara, those echoes were still audible. According to a new book by Franca Giansoldati, the Vatican-watcher of Il Messaggero, an Italian daily, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's president, “begged” Pope Francis to refrain from openly characterising the Ottoman Empire's slaughter of Armenians in 1915 as genocide.

　　The pope respected his host's wishes then. But on April 12th he abandoned tact and referred to the killings as “the first genocide of the 20th century”. The Turkish government responded with outrage and recalled its ambassador to the Holy See for consultations. A vote in the European Parliament on April 15th, commending the pope's statement and urging Turkey to recognise the massacres as genocide, further infuriated Mr Erdogan. “It is not possible for Turkey to accept such a crime, such a sin,” he said.

　　Francis has used the same phrase before, most recently in 2013 when he met an Armenian delegation. But that was scarcely reported, and the Turkish authorities merely expressed “disappointment” and called in the Vatican's envoy for a ticking-off. This time, he was making a much-awaited speech in front of Armenia's president, Serzh Sargsyan, days before the official centenary commemorations on April 24th.

　　Turkish diplomats are understood to have set themselves two aims as the centenary approached: to stop the mass at which Francis spoke being held on the day itself, and to prevent him from using the G-word. They gained their first objective. In deciding to deny them their second, the pope and his diplomatic advisers had to weigh opposing factors.

　　参考译文:

　　1915年教皇本笃十五世致函奥斯曼帝国苏丹―默罕默德五世，言及他能听到“整个民族遭受难以言状痛苦时所发出的呻吟在天际回响。” (一百年后的)今天，当年两大巨头各自的继任者去年11月在土耳其安卡拉外的总统官邸会见时，这种回响仍然久久不散。意大利报纸《信使报》梵蒂冈问题观察家Franca Giansoldati在一本新书中披露：土耳其总统雷杰普塔伊普埃尔多安“恳祈”教皇弗兰西斯不要把1915年奥斯曼帝国屠杀亚美尼亚人的事件公开定性为种族灭绝。

　　虽然一开始尊重了总统的诉求，但到了4月12日，教皇却撕破脸并将此次屠杀斥之为 “20世纪首屈一指的种族灭绝事件。”土耳其政府大吃一惊,召回了驻梵蒂冈教廷的使节进行磋商。4月15日欧洲议会投票表决支持教皇的声明，并敦促土耳其承认此次屠杀是种族灭绝行为，这更进一步激怒了埃尔多安总统。他说：“土耳其绝不承认这种罪行。”

　　教皇方济各此前也用过相同的措辞，最近一次是在 2013 年接见亚美尼亚代表团时。但这些言论几乎鲜有报道,土耳其政府也仅仅是表示了“失望”,并召会梵蒂冈特使进申斥而已。然而这一次，就在4月24日的正式百年纪念活动开始的前几天，他当着亚美尼亚总统萨尔基相的面发表了这样一个“众望所归”言论。

　　百年庆典临近时，土耳其的外交官们心照不宣地为自己设定两个目标：其一是阻止纪念日当天方济各要作演讲的那个群众集会。其二是阻止他用“种族灭绝”的字眼。第一个目标落空了。而要顶住土耳其的第二个诉求，教皇和他的外交顾问不得不权衡对手的实力。