Pope: ‘Great Powers Washed their Hands During Genocide’

Pope Francis I

BUENOS AIRES—In 2010, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the newly-consecrated Pope Francis I, and Argentinean Rabbi Abraham Skorka, published a book entitled “On Heaven and Earth” (“Sobre el Cielo y la Tierra”) that was re-edited in 2013. The book addresses topics such as religion, atheists, death and the Holocaust, reported Diario Armenia reports.
In a chapter called “On religions,” Bergoglio said: “In the Twentieth Century, they razed entire villages because they considered themselves Gods. The Turks did that to the Armenians, the Nazis to the Jews. They used a discourse of divine attributes to kill men.”
In another chapter “On the Holocaust,” Bergoglio said: “The great powers washed their hands and looked the other way because they knew much more than what they said, just like they washed their hands in the Armenian Genocide. At that time the Ottoman Empire was strong, the world was in war and looked the other way”.
Finally, in the chapter called “On communism and capitalism,” Bergoglio said: “If a person doesn’t fight for their rights thinking in Paradise, he is indeed under the effects of opium (Ed: in relation to Marx’s phrase, “Religion is the opium of the people”). The people who have suffered persecution and destruction -like the three major genocides of the last century: Armenians, Jews and Ukrainians- fought for their freedom.”