Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, elected the Catholic church's 266th pope, has often attended the liturgies of Armenian Apostolic church in Buenos Aires.
According to Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Argentina and Chile, Archbishop Kissag Muradian, during the inauguration of khachkar on the 95th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide Archbishop Bergoglio expressed a which to be buried beneath the memorial.
As Armenian-Turkish Agos newspaper reports, on April 23, 2004, at a special mass he celebrated in Buenos Aires’ Metropolitan Cathedral, Archb. Bergoglio said, “We are united in the pain of a Genocide, the first one in the 20th century, which now powerful empires try by all means to silence and cover up… We pray that the Lord frees us from all this and gives us freedom.”
Two years later, during the celebration of an ecumenical liturgy presided by Cardinal Bergoglio and Archb. Kissag at the Buenos Aires Cathedral, during the 91st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide on April 2006, the priest who is now the Pope said, “Today we pray for this nation who is still deprived of human rights.”
“Our friendship with Cardinal Bergoglio mainly started in the years 2004, 2005 and grew especially on the 95th anniversary of the Genocide, when a khachkar was placed in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral,” Archb. Kissag said. “He had told me he wanted to be buried beneath that Armenian khachkar,” he added, expressing his hope that his friend, now as Pope Francis I, will help in achieving progress for recognition of the Genocide.
