Cardinal Bo: Even military in Myanmar respects the Church

Yangon, Burma, Nov 27, 2017 / 11:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Monday Pope Francis touched down in Yangon for what will likely be a politically charged and religiously significant six-day trip bringing him to both Burma and Bangladesh as the two countries face an escalating refugee crisis.

Pope Francis is in Burma and Bangladesh Nov. 27-Dec. 2, in what is now his third tour of Asia since his election in 2013. It is the first papal visit to Burma, the Holy See having established formal diplomatic relations with the country only last year.

His visit to Bangladesh, however, is the second time a Pope has visited, the first being St. John Paul II in 1986. Bl. Pope Paul VI made a brief stop in the territory in 1970, when it was still East Pakistan.

Throughout his six-day visit, Pope Francis will give 11 speeches total: five in Burma, consisting of three formal speeches and two homilies, and six in Bangladesh, counting five official speeches and one homily.

On the plane ride over, Francis told journalists he hopes it will be a fruitful visit. Here are a few key things for which to keep an eye out as things move forward.

The Pope’s meetings with Burmese civil and military authorities

This trip is one of the most diplomatically complicated international voyages Pope Francis taken so far, so much so that Vatican Spokesman Greg Burke described the trip to journalists as being “very interesting diplomatically” in last week’s briefing on the visit.

Aside from the very small Catholic population in each country, political circumstances in Burma have been precarious for years, as they are in the midst of a transition from military leadership to diplomacy.

The country is also called Myanmar, and while the Vatican uses this name in their official diplomatic correspondence, ‘Myanmar’ is considered by the U.S. government and many democracy activists to have been illegally imposed on the country by its military dictatorship.

Burma functioned as a military dictatorship for more than 50 years, until democratic reforms began taking root in 2011. In November 2015, Aung San Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, were elected by an overwhelming majority, putting an end to a five-decade military dictatorship.

Aung San Suu Kyi and her party had also won the election in 1990, but the results weren’t recognized by the military government, and she was put under house arrest. However, despite her success in 2015, she is still barred from officially becoming president, and holds the title of “State Counsellor” and Foreign Minister, while a close associate is acting as president.

Despite emerging signs of democratic reform in Burma, the military still wields considerable political authority, including the appointment of cabinet ministers, and one-quarter of the nation’s legislature.

A key element of the Pope’s visit to watch for, then, is his formal meetings with both Aung San Suu Kyi Nov. 28, and his meeting with Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces.

The meeting with Min Aung Hlaing wasn’t initially on the Pope’s schedule; however, during a recent visit to Rome Cardinal Charles Maung Bo of Yangon recommended that a meeting with the military leader be added.

Pope Francis took the cardinal’s advice and scheduled the meeting for Nov. 30 at the archbishop’s house in Yangon, where he is staying while in Burma. However, the meeting was bumped up, and took place on the first day of Francis’ visit, shortly after he landed.

Lasting a total of 15 minutes, including conversation via interpreters and an exchange of gifts, the private encounter was the Pope’s first official meeting of the trip. Several of Min Aung Hlaing’s deputies were present.

According to Burke, the two spoke of “the great responsibility of the country’s authorities in this moment of transition.”

Min Aung Hlaing said on Twitter that he told Pope Francis, “there’s no religious discrimination” in the country, and “there is the freedom of religion.”

That Francis bumped the trip to the first day of his visit, when nothing else was scheduled, is noteworthy, and will be important to keep in mind as he meets with  Aung San Suu Kyi, the president,  and civil authorities Nov. 28. His words during the meeting are sure to carry a weighty significance.

The term ‘Rohingya’

With this political backdrop in mind, another thing to look out for is whether or not Pope Francis will use the term Rohingya to describe the largely Muslim ethnic group who reside in Burma’s Rakhine State.

His visit comes amid an uptick in state-supported violence against the Rohingya, which in recent months has reached staggering levels, causing the United Nations to declare the situation “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”

With an increase in persecution in their home country, many of the Rohingya have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, with millions camping along the border as refugees. More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled Burma for Bangladesh in recent months.

However, despite widespread use of the term Rohingya in the international community, the term is controversial within Burma.

The Burmese government refuses to use the term, and considers them illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. They have been denied citizenship since Burma gained independence in 1948.

Because of the touchy nature of the term, Cardinal Bo also suggested to the Pope that he refrain from using the word on the ground, arguing that extremists in the area are trying to rouse the population by using the term, making the risk of a new interreligious conflict ever-more present, with Christians in the crossfire.

According to Bo, the correct term to use is “Muslims of the Rakhine State.” He also stressed that other minorities in Burmese territory face persecution and displacement, including the Kachin, Kahn, and Shahn peoples, yet their plight often goes unreported.

Burke said the recent worsening of the humanitarian situation in Burma will be a strong element of the Pope’s visit, and that Francis is coming “at a key time” in this sense.

However, while the situation of the Rohingya has escalated in over the past few months, Burke said it wasn’t the primary reason for the Pope’s visit. “The trip was going to happen anyway,” he said. Recent developments have now “drawn attention to it, but it was going to happen anyway.”

Burke himself used term “Rohingya” to describe the persecuted Muslim minority, saying “it’s not a forbidden term” in the Vatican, and the Pope himself has used it before. But Cardinal Bo made a suggestion that Francis “took into account,” he said, adding, “we’ll see together” whether or not Pope Francis uses the term during his visit.  

Interreligious encounters

Throughout his visit, Pope Francis will have several moments of interreligious encounter, with Rohingya Muslims also participating. Combine this with that fact that Burma is a majority Buddhist country and Bangladesh majority Muslim, and these meetings will be of special interest.

Of importance is a private meeting of interreligious leaders scheduled to take place Nov. 28 at the archbishop’s residence in Yangon, which wasn’t initially on the Pope’s slate, but was also added upon the suggestion of Cardinal Bo.

Though there is not yet a list of who will participate, Bo said around 15 leaders will be present representing Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims, including the likely presence of a member of the Rohingya community.

On the same day Francis will also meet with members of the “Sangha,” the Supreme Council of Buddhist clergy in the country. Catholics in Burma are a small minority, making up just 1.3 percent of a population of nearly 52 million.

Pope Francis will also meet with Rohingya Muslims during a Dec. 1 interreligious encounter in Bangladesh where five testimonies are expected to be given. Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and Christians will all be present for the gathering.

In Bangladesh, 86 percent of the population practices Islam. The 375,000 Catholics there represent less than 0.2 of the total population.

Words to the Catholic community

As is by now well-known, Pope Francis has a special affinity for the peripheries. Both Burma and Bangladesh fall into this category ecclesiastically speaking, as well as economically. Bangladesh is among the poorest countries in the world, with nearly 30 percent of the population living under the poverty line.

Francis already boosted the profile of these nations by appointing the first-ever cardinals, giving Cardinal Bo a red hat in 2015, and elevating Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario of Dhaka in November 2016.

With Christians being a small minority in both Burma and Bangladesh, the Pope’s appointments were considered an encouragement for the small Catholic populations, and his visit is seen as a further sign of his closeness to a demographic that also faces discrimination in the area.

Christians in Burma also face blatant persecution, which some fear could increase if the Pope offends the government regarding the Rohingya.

Last year the United States Commission on Religious Freedom issued two separate reports on Burma, one of which focused on the plight of the Rohingya, and the second, titled “Hidden Plight: Christian Minorities in Burma,” highlighted the discrimination and persecution Christians face.

Encounters with youth

The Pope’s visits to both Burma and Bangladesh will be closed with meetings with the countries’ youth.

According to Burke, this was a decision the Pope himself made in order to show that they are an essential part of the Church, and that in each country, it is “a young Church with hope.”

In his meetings with youth, the Pope typically tosses his prepared remarks after listening to testimonies and speaks more freely and casually to the youth as he tries to enter into the raw reality faced by the local population, giving them a message of hope and some instructions for the future.

In messages sent to both countries ahead of his visit, Pope Francis said he was coming to spread the Gospel and to bring a message of peace, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Though he will likely offer paternal advice to priests and religious, the meeting with youth is where his more pastoral side is most likely to come out stronger, and where he will likely go beyond the politics in order to offer a message of hope, peace and reconciliation for youth to carry forward into the future.

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Hong Kong, China, Aug 28, 2019 / 06:05 pm (CNA).- The people of Hong Kong are no strangers to political protest.

Large-scale demonstrations have rocked the island territory since early June, when an estimated 1 million marchers took to the streets, chanting and singing.

The protests began as a response to a controversial bill, put forth in February by the government of chief executive Carrie Lam, which would have allowed the Chinese government to extradite alleged criminals from Hong Kong to stand trial on the mainland.

Protestors vehemently opposed the bill, sparking the first major protest on June 6.

Though Lam suspended the bill June 15 and even apologized, protestors feared that the proposal could be reintroduced. The next day, an estimated 2 million marchers were out on the streets.

The protests have since morphed to focus on actions by police that many have denounced as police brutality, including allegations of sexual assault by police officers.  Protestors also have made calls for greater democracy in the territory and for Lam’s resignation.

The New York Times has noted that these protests have eclipsed the island’s next-longest set of protests in length, as the demonstrations have been going on for 80 days— longer than the 2014 pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement,” which also saw hundreds of thousands of citizens take to the streets.

Though the protests have been largely peaceful, participants on both sides have periodically resorted to violence.

Opposing mobs of protestors have occasionally clashed, resulting in injuries, and Hong Kong’s police fired a live round of ammunition for the first time during an Aug. 26 protest. The police also used water cannons to break up protestors for the first time, after having used tear gas and rubber bullets extensively in the past, which have led to numerous injuries.

The political situation, and the implications for what could happen next, are complex, and Catholics and Protestant Christians both young and old are making their voices heard amid the protests.

What is Hong Kong’s political context?

Hong Kong is what’s known as a special administrative region, meaning it has its own government but remains under Chinese control.

Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997, when it was returned to China under a “one country, two systems” principle, allowing it its own legislature and economic system. Chief Executive Carrie Lam is herself Catholic, BBC News reports.

The territory has seen numerous protests in recent years, most significantly in 2014, wherein citizens have demanded an expansion of democracy.

The current protests are the longest and largest in the territory’s history, and are not currently showing signs of abating.

What is it like for Catholics in Hong Kong?

Life for Catholics in Hong Kong vs in mainland China is very different. The island is only about 8% Catholic, but that represents a population of over half a million.

Hong Kong has total freedom of worship and evangelization, Father Bernardo Cervellera, editor of Asia News, told EWTN News Nightly recently, because for the past 50 years it has been a “liberal society” where the decisions of the dioceses are not subject to government control.

In mainland China, by contrast, there is a long history of persecution for Christians who run afoul of the government.

The U.S. Commission on International Religion wrote in its 2018 report that last year China “advanced its so-called ‘sinicization’ of religion, a far-reaching strategy to control, govern, and manipulate all aspects of faith into a socialist mold infused with ‘Chinese characteristics.’” Christians, Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners have all been affected.

A new bishop was consecrated this week in Inner Mongolia, China, becoming the first bishop to be consecrated in the country under a new deal signed between the Vatican and Beijing. The Vatican says the deal will lead to increased freedoms for Chinese Catholics, but some critics have been skeptical.

Why are the protests so significant for Christians?

Catholic leaders in Hong Kong have expressed concern that the Communist Chinese government would use the now-suspended extradition law to further tighten its grip on free speech and free exercise of religion in Hong Kong.

“The Chinese government is suppressing the Church in mainland China, and so we are worried that when we have communication with the mainland Church, maybe one day the Chinese government will also arrest the Hong Kong people to suppress Hong Kong people,” Edwin Chow, acting president of the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students, told CNA.

The apostolic administrator of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Tong, has asked the government to eliminate the extradition law completely, and for an independent inquiry into the excessive use of force by the Hong Kong police.

An oft-cited case is that of Lam Wing-kee, a Hong Kong bookseller who sold books critical of China’s leadership. Authorities arrested him as he crossed the border into mainland China in 2015.

Lam fears that the law could be used to control free speech in Hong Kong through fear that the Chinese would begin— legally— forcibly removing from Hong Kong those who express views they do not agree with.

“Beijing will use this [extradition] law to control Hong Kong completely,” Lam told ucanews.com in June.

“Freedom of speech will be lost. In the past, the regime kidnapped its critics, like me, illegally. With this law, they will abduct their critics legally.”

The issue of extradition has been a contentious one in the region for a number of years, as Hong Kong has no formal extradition deal with Taiwan, Macao, and mainland China, potentially creating legal loopholes in some circumstances.

Still, advocacy groups expressed worry that the law could endanger the freedom that Christians in Hong Kong currently enjoy.

“If the latest legislation was successful, those seeking refuge and freedom of conscience in Hong Kong could face extradition back to the mainland,” International Christian Concern (ICC), an advocacy group for persecuted Christians, said June 17.

Not all Christian groups oppose the legislation, however; Peter Douglas Koon, the Anglican provincial secretary-general of Hong Kong, supports the change, and the Anglican Church in Hong Kong has stated its position as being that offenders must be brought to justice by whatever means necessary, LaCroix International reports.

What have the protestors done?

Large groups of protestors, most of them young people, have used social media and private messaging apps such as Telegram to coordinate their rallies.

Most of the protests have taken place in public places, mainly on the streets. On Aug. 23, thousands of protestors formed a giant human chain across the city.

In mid-August, thousands of protestors filled the arrival and departure halls of the Hong Kong airport, disrupting service and at one point canceling 200 flights in one day.

Though the protests have been largely peaceful, participants on both sides have periodically resorted to violence.

On July 1, the 22nd anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to China, protestors broke through into the territory’s legislature building where, per The New York Times, they painted slogans on walls and defaced symbols of Chinese authority.

In mid-July, protestors and police clashed in a shopping mall. Photographs from the scene shows umbrellas scattered everywhere.

Opposing mobs of protestors have occasionally clashed, resulting in injuries, and Hong Kong’s police fired a live round of ammunition for the first time during an Aug. 26 protest. The police also used water cannons to break up protestors for the first time, after having used tear gas and rubber bullets extensively in the past, which have led to numerous injuries. Police arrested 36.

Despite the threat of violence from police and growing concern about a potential crackdown by Chinese authorities, an estimated 1.7 million people took to the streets of Hong Kong the previous Sunday for a largely peaceful demonstration in the pouring rain.

Some protestors, marching Aug. 28, focused their message on opposing alleged sexual assaults by police against female protesters, and standing in solidarity with a woman who police allegedly shot in the eye with a rubber bullet.

What are Catholics saying and doing?

The Archdiocese of Hong Kong has released numerous statements decrying the violence and urging prayers for the protestors. 

Chow has called the protests a “leaderless movement,” and said that many of the Catholic students join in the protests organized by others, but also arrange Masses and prayer vigils to go long with the marches.

Henry Au, an entrepreneur who serves on the board of directors for the Irish Chamber of Commerce for Hong Hong, told CNA in August that although he has only attended two or three of the actual marches, he has been trying to materially support the protestors however he can.

He said older Catholics are less likely to go and march in the street, but they are still able to assist by providing funds to hold Masses and buy protection gear for the protestors.
Many clergy have also been supportive.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong and a sharp critic of the Vatican-China deal, celebrated Mass on June 16 at the invitation of the Federation in front of the government headquarters.

Chow told CNA he would like to see Catholics and other Christians take on a larger role in ongoing protests against the government, amid fears of a crackdown by Chinese authorities.

“For this movement, it’s a great chance for the Catholics and [Protestant] Christians to cooperate with each other,” Chow told CNA on Aug. 16.

“It’s a good chance for us to become united. Because I think for most of the Catholics and Christians, we have the same values, the same goal…so that’s why we cooperate, and I think after Christians and Catholics cooperate, or strengths, our power becomes stronger.”

While Chow said that Christians, among them Catholics, had a more major role when the protests began— leading the singing of hymns such as “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” in the streets during the protests, for example— their role has since diminished.

As the protests have continued, he said some participants became “more aggressive, more radical.” Chow said he thinks the protests have become more radical because even after two marches in June saw more than a million marchers, the government has still not answered the protestors’ demands.

Many of the protestors began to take action such as try to break into the legislative council building, or clash with police out of frustration.

What’s next?

Mainland China’s next move remains difficult to discern. After the violent Aug. 26 clash, Chinese state media used its “”harshest rhetoric yet to condemn the unrest and warned that Beijing could soon intervene, Time reports

A fleet of armored vehicles has been training at a sports stadium in Shenzhen, a mainland Chinese city not far from Hong Kong.

Chow told CNA that the next large protest is scheduled to take place Aug. 31. In addition, students are planning to strike on the first day of class, Sept. 2.

“For the Catholic groups, for the Christian groups, we have the responsibility and we have the power to calm our friends down. Because I think singing hymns, just in the beginning, it creates a peaceful atmosphere, and it has a power to keep everyone very calm. So I think we can use this when we do this again,” Chow said.

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Washington D.C., Aug 9, 2017 / 06:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- What can a missionary in North Korea do to preach the Gospel in a Communist dictatorship? Simply care for the sick patients he is there to help, says one priest in that situation.

“We are… […]