Pope Francis visits Myanmar next week, a delicate trip for the world’s most senior Christian to a majority Buddhist country accused by Washington of the “ethnic cleansing” of Muslim Rohingya people.
He will also visit Bangladesh to where more than120000people have fled from what Amnesty International called “crimes against humanity” including murder, rape torture and forcible displacement, allegations the Myanmar military denies.
The trip is so delicate that some of the pope’s advisors have warned him against even saying the word “Rohingya,” lest he set off a diplomatic incident that could turn the country’s military and government against minority Christians.
Myanmar does not recognize Rohingya as citizens nor as a group with its own identity, posing a dilemma for Francis as he visits a country of 51 million people where only around 700,000 are Roman Catholics.
“He risks either compromising his moral authority or putting in danger the Christians of that country,” said Father Thomas Reese, a prominent American author and analyst at Religion News Service.
“I have great admiration for the pope and his abilities, but someone should have talked him out of making this trip,” he wrote.
Vatican sources say some in the Holy See believe the trip was decided too hastily after full diplomatic ties were established in May during a visit by Suu Kyi, whose global esteem as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been tarnished by expressing doubts about the rights abuse allegations and failing to condemn the military.
In a late addition to his itinerary, Francis will meet Rohingya refugees on the second leg of his trip in the Bangladesi capital Dhaka. His meeting with General Min Aung Hlaing was also a late addition following negotiations with the military by Myanmar’s senior churchman, Cardinal Charles Bo.