Scottish Catholic Observer

The Holy Father will travel to Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw in Burma from November 27-30, before going on to Dhaka in Bangladesh from November 30 to December 2.

The announcement comes after the relationship between the Vatican and Burma’s government has become more genial, when in May both decided to establish full diplomatic relationship, following a meeting with the Pope and Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese state counsellor.

Burma had its first ever cardinal installed in 2015 by Pope Francis, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, the Archbishop of Yangon, who on a visit to the UK last year said that the country was beginning a ‘season of hope’.

“Our country was taken to five decades of Calvary by evil men,” he said. “Everyone thought this was a country without an Easter.

“You have witnessed from afar the suffering of this nation. Those times many countries did undergo the way of the Cross.

“There was an iron curtain. But our country was under what was called a bamboo curtain.

Christians make up only six per cent of the country’s population, with the majority belonging to the Buddhist faith. Of that six per cent, only a fifth are Catholic, while in Bangladesh only 0.4 per cent of the country are Christian.

“For the Pope to speak out for and stand in solidarity with a persecuted Muslim community so robustly sends a vital and very welcome message about the values of human dignity religious freedom and inter-religious harmony for all,” said Benedict Rogers on the situation for the Rohingya Muslims in Burma, who has penned three books about Burma, and is the East Asia team leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

“I hope, however, that as he prepares to visit Burma in November, Pope Francis will also speak out for other ethnic nationalities in the country, particularly the Kachin and Shan, who are facing similar war crimes and crimes against humanity at the hands of the Burmese army, in addition to continuing to defend the basic human rights of the Rohingyas and other persecuted Muslims in Burma.”