Pope Francis wrapped up his visit to Myanmar on Thursday with a Mass for young people before heading to neighbouring Bangladesh where the Muslim Rohingya refugee crisis was expected to take center stage.<\/p>\n
Francis has so far refrained from speaking out about Asia\u2019s worst humanitarian crisis in decades out of diplomatic deference to his hosts in Myanmar, who consider the Rohingya as having illegally migrated from Bangladesh and don\u2019t recognize them as their own ethnic group.<\/p>\n
The Vatican has defended Francis\u2019 silence, saying the pope wants to \u201cbuild bridges\u201d with the predominantly Buddhist nation. But human rights groups and Rohingya themselves have expressed disappointment that Francis, an advocate for refugees and the world\u2019s most marginal, refrained from condemning what the UN has said is a textbook case of ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said Francis took seriously the advice given to him by the local Catholic Church, which urged him to toe a cautious line and not even refer to the \u201cRohingya\u201d by name during his trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can criticize what\u2019s said, what\u2019s not said, but the pope is not going to lose moral authority on this question here,\u201d Burke told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Rohingya have faced persecution and discrimination in Myanmar for decades and are denied citizenship, even though many families have lived there for generations. The situation grew worse in August when the army began what it called clearance operations in northern Rakhine state following attacks on security positions by Rohingya militants.<\/p>\n
More than 620,000 Rohingya have since poured into refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, where they have described indiscriminate attacks by Myanmar security forces and Buddhist mobs, including killings, rapes and the torching of entire villages.<\/p>\n
Burke stressed that Francis\u2019 diplomatic stance in public in Myanmar didn\u2019t negate what he had said in the past, or what he might be saying in private.<\/p>\n
In the past, Francis has strongly condemned the \u201cpersecution of our Rohingya brothers,\u201d denounced their suffering because of their faith and called for them to receive \u201cfull rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
While he called in his first major speech on Tuesday for all of Myanmar\u2019s ethnic groups to have their human rights respected, his failure to specify the Rohingya crisis on Myanmar soil drew criticism from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Rohingya themselves.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Myanmar Bishop John Hsane Hgyi suggested that reports of atrocities being committed against the Rohingya were not \u201creliable\u201d or \u201cauthoritative,\u201d and that those who criticized Myanmar\u2019s response to a complex situation should \u201cgo into the field to study the reality and history\u201d to obtain \u201ctrue news.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government has barred independent groups from travelling to northern Rakhine state.<\/p>\n
In his final event in Myanmar, Francis celebrated Mass in Yangon\u2019s St. Mary\u2019s Cathedral for young Catholics. The young worshippers, many dressed in the traditional clothing of their ethnic groups, leaned out to touch or kiss Francis\u2019 hand as he slowly walked by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pope Francis wrapped up his visit to Myanmar on Thursday with a Mass for young people before heading to neighbouring Bangladesh where the Muslim Rohingya refugee crisis was expected to take center stage. Francis has so far refrained from speaking out about Asia\u2019s worst humanitarian crisis in decades out of diplomatic deference to his hosts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11604,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11602\/revisions\/11604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}