The nightmare for Christians in Turkey returns. "I express my closeness to the community of the church of Santa Maria in Sariyer, Istanbul, which during mass suffered an armed attack that caused one death and several injuries," said Pope Francis at the Angelus a few hours after the attack took place in a residential area of the city, during the religious service. Despite President Erdogan immediately announcing that those responsible will be punished, in the Vatican the incident inevitably brought to the surface decades marked by a very unstable climate for the Catholic minority that even led to the murder of a bishop, beheaded in 2010 by a young Muslim who worked for him and had progressively radicalized.
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Not to mention various acts of intimidation, bombs in front of churches, threats and another priest - this time Roman - Don Andrea Santoro killed four years earlier in front of his parish in Trebisonda, on the Black Sea, where he carried out his mission as a fidei donum missionary at the cry of Allah-h-Abar. Other Christians have also paid the price of radicalization in Turkey, especially in the Anatolian areas. In 2007, the year after the death of Don Santoro, three evangelical Christians were slaughtered in the Protestant church of Malatya, ironically an area marked by a heavy martyrdom during the years of the Armenian genocide (1915-1917). In Mardin, Bishop Maloyan was slaughtered and then beatified by John Paul II in 2001.
The bishops and friars who resist in the Anatolian area have always reported many episodes of intimidation and vandalism. "They throw garbage in the church, damage the doors" even though they have always emphasized that the continuous problems do not express so much a generalized hostility on the part of the local population but rather the presence of intolerant fringes, committed to causing damage.
The relations between the Vatican and Turkey are very ancient, dating back to the times of the Ottoman Empire but they cyclically undergo alternating phases. The relationship between Pope Francis and President Erdogan has always been described as rather good, so much so that on several occasions, especially related to the international crisis, the two leaders have spoken by telephone to exchange information and opinions. It happened on the Ukrainian issue, on the Jerusalem knot and after Ankara's decision to return the basilica of Santa Sofia (which since Ataturk's times was a museum) to Islamic worship. In that instance, Pope Francis expressed to Erdogan his "deep personal sorrow" but then relations and dialogue prevailed. Exactly as it was for the diplomatic crisis of 2015 followed by the celebrations for the centenary of the Armenian genocide that modern Turkey continues to deny, to the point of punishing by law those who dare to talk about it in public (an article of the penal code that defines it as a crime to talk about genocide has not yet been repealed).
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Perhaps the lowest point in diplomatic relations was under the pontificate of Benedict XVI. Before being elected, as a cardinal, Ratzinger gave a long interview to a French newspaper in which he expressed his personal opposition to Turkey being accepted into the EU.
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