Vatican City, Aug 28, 2017 / 02:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Monday the Vatican confirmed rumors that have been swirling the past few weeks about a papal visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh, announcing that Pope Francis will visit the two Asian countries Nov. 27-Dec. 2.
“Welcoming the invitation of the respective heads of state and bishops, His Holiness Pope Francis will make an apostolic visit to Myanmar from 27 to 30 November 2017, visiting the cities of Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw,” an Aug. 28 statement from Vatican spokesman Greg Burke read.
The communique also noted that after Myanmar, the Pope will head to Bangladesh “from 30 November to 2 December 2017, visiting the city of Dhaka.” The logo for the trip was also published, however, the schedule is expected to be released shortly.
The Pope has been talking about a visit to Asia for several months, however, until now nothing had been confirmed. Still, he managed to slip the visit in just before Christmas. It also falls just two months before a second tour of South America, which will take him to Peru and Chile in January 2018.
The Pope has been talking about a visit to Asia for several months, however, until now nothing had been confirmed. Still, he managed to slip the visit in just before Christmas. It also falls just TWO MONTHS before a second tour of South America, which will take him to Peru and Chile in January 2018.
Though India was initially part of the plan for this year’s Asia trip, a visit to the country had to be cut due to complications with the country’s government.
Despite hopes from all sides, it’s taken longer than anticipated to work out some of the details with the government of Prime Minister Narhendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist seen by many as hostile to India’s Christian minority.
Francis’ decision to visit Bangladesh and Myanmar, however, is not only a shining example of his attention to the peripheries, but it also speaks of the great attention he has placed on Asia since his election.
His second trip as Pope was a visit to South Korea in August 2014, made in part to celebrate Asian Youth Day, and just five months later, in January 2015, he traveled to Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
The upcoming visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh, then, will mark his third tour of Asia so far in his four-year tenure.
According to the 2014 census of the Burmese government, at 88 percent Buddhism is the primary religion of Myanmar. In an overall population of roughly 5.1 million, Christians make up just 6.2 percent, around 700,000 of whom are Roman Catholics, while Muslims make up 4.3 percent and Hindus are only .5 percent.
The Holy See and Myanmar officially established diplomatic ties in May, agreeing to send ambassadors to each others’ countries when the country’s de-facto civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, visited the Vatican.
The move to officially establish diplomatic ties comes just two months after Myanmar’s parliament voted in March to make their country the 183rd nation to enjoy diplomatic relations with the Holy See.
Also serving as Myanmar’s Foreign Minister, Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese diplomat, politician and author who currently serves as the country’s State Counselor. Before her rise to power, she spent much of her career under house arrest due to her push for human rights and democracy, which contradicted the military rule at the time.
As far as the Catholic Church in Myanmar, the country has 16 Catholic dioceses and a total of 29 living bishops, both active and retired. In 2015 Pope Francis appointed Myanmar’s first-ever cardinal, giving a red hat to Charles Maung Bo, archbishop of Yangon.
Just this past year, in the November 19, 2016, consistory, the Pope made a similar gesture toward Bangladesh, naming Archbishop Patrick D’Rozario of Dhaka the first-ever cardinal for the Muslim-majority country.
Listed among the top ten most populated countries in the world, with roughly 163 million citizens, Bangladesh has a minority Catholic population of around 0.3 percent, while the majority of the population, about 90 percent, is Muslim.
In addition to Francis’ affinity for the global margins, another key element of the trip close to his heart is the plight of the persecuted Muslim Rohingya people, which he has spoken of often and is likely a key reason for his symbolic decision to travel to both Myanmar and Bangladesh.
The Rohingya
The Rohingya are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group largely from the Rakhine state of Burma, in west Myanmar. Since clashes began in 2012 between the state’s Buddhist community and the long-oppressed Rohingya Muslim minority, some 125,000 Rohingya have been displaced, while more than 100,000 have fled Myanmar by sea.
In order to escape forced segregation from the rest of the population inside rural ghettos, many of the Rohingya – who are not recognized by the government as a legitimate ethnic group or as citizens of Myanmar – have made perilous journeys by sea in hope of evading persecution.
In 2015, a number of Rohingya people – estimated to be in the thousands – were stranded at sea for several months with dwindling supplies while Southeastern nations such as Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia refused to take them in.
However, since last year around 87,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh amid a military crackdown on insurgents in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, giving way to horrifying stories of rapes, killings and arson by security forces. Dozens of new deaths have been reported in recent days amid fresh clashes between the Rohingya and Myanmar’s army.
In Bangladesh, however, the Rohingya have had little relief, since they are not recognized as refugees in the country. Since last October, many who had fled to Bangladesh have been detained and forced to return to the neighboring Rakhine state.
Pope Francis and the Rohingya
Pope Francis has spoken out on behalf of the Rohingya on several occasions, first drawing attention to their plight during an audience in 2015 with more than 1,500 members of the International Eucharistic Youth Movement.
“Let’s think of those brothers of ours of the Rohingya,” he told attendees. “They were chased from one country and from another and from another. When they arrived at a port or a beach, they gave them a bit of water or a bit to eat and were there chased out to the sea.”
This, he said, “is called killing. It’s true. If I have a conflict with you and I kill you, its war.”
He brought the topic up again a month later in an interview with a Portuguese radio station, and he has consistently spoken out on behalf of the Rohingya in Angelus addresses, daily Masses and general audiences.
In his Feb. 8 general audience, Pope Francis asked pilgrims to pray with him “for our brother and sister Rohingya. They were driven out of Myanmar, they go from one place to another and no one wants them.”
“They are good people, peaceful people; they aren’t Christians, but they are good. They are our brothers and sisters. And they have suffered for years,” he said, noting that often members of the ethnic minority have been “tortured and killed” simply for carrying forward their traditions and Muslim faith.
He then led pilgrims in praying an “Our Father” for the Rohingya, asking afterward for St. Josephine Bakhita, herself a former salve and the patroness of annual international day of prayer and reflection against human trafficking, to intercede.
The Pope also used yesterday’s Angelus address to draw attention to a recent uptick in violence that has caused nearly 100 new Rohingya deaths.
His visit, then, will likely be used as an occasion to push for a peaceful resolution to the conflict that puts respect for human dignity above ethnic disputes.
As far as previous Popes, St. John Paul II visited Bangladesh in 1986. However, Francis’ visit to Myanmar will mark the first time a Pope has ever made an official visit to the country.
Other confirmed international trips for Pope Francis are his upcoming visit to Colombia Sept. 9-13, and his visit to Chile and Peru at the beginning of next year, from Jan. 15-21, 2018.
Hannah Brockhaus contributed to this report.
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If the Pope gets to decide from afar, what role in worship does the local Ordinate have? Does he just enforce the dictates of the Pope or does he not have a say over the manner in which his flock engages Our Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? I understand he has charge over catechesis, confirmation and ordination; but, does he not also form the conscience of the flock under his care? I feel pity for any Bishop who wishes to grow his flock, instill right worship and true devotion and ONLY have one tool in his tool chest with with to accomplish his task: the NO Missae of Paul VI.
Every bishop of a diocese is a successor to an apostle and is sole the sole authority in his diocese. No bishop or Pope can in anway impose their personal views or opinions on any bishop/apostle of a diocese. Pope Francis is going way beyond his role as the successor of Peter.
There can be honest disagreement about the direction in which PF is leading the Church, but this tendency to micro-manage the bishops is surely unsettling to the liberal mind.
Fortunately, in my diocese we are ignoring Traditionis Custodes. And should things get uglier after April 3, plans are already being made to continue with the TLM with a diocesan priest and a real church location. The octogenarian modernists have already lost. They just don’t realize it yet, so blinded are they by envy and hate.
You’re a schismatic. Your bishop does not have the authority to ignore TC. Stop making an idol out of the TLM and start being Catholic.
Dear Friend,
When was the last time you attended a solemn high mass? When was the last time you knelt at the altar of the communion rail to receive Our Lord and do your part to finalize the oblation? When did you last gaze at the pews full of well dressed, well behaved young people, sitting with their (many) siblings and parents attentively “assisting” in the holy offering? Tell me, Friend, when did you last walk into a Catholic Church and NOT fear trampling on the precious body of Our Lord and savior? Every piece, every fraction, every fragment is the WHOLE of His body. He gets handed out like a carnival ticket in the NO Missae. I’ve seen fragments get trampled, or nearly so, because of insensitive, haughty and arrogant, modernist “Catholics” who don’t even believe in the Real Presence. The abuses are plain scandalous and shocking. Do a deep dive this Lent like I did 2 years ago when my local NO priest shut us out of the church for fear of a cold virus. Seek out that which you condemn and go. Study the counsel and its deeply jaded and nefarious players. Start with Michael Davies. He’s a good place to start. God bless. Don’t condemn. God is at the TLM. MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT.
Right, Mr. Tabish. Turning my back on the NO in 2018, I’ve never looked back except to lament the loss of God’s people still stuck there.
Scooter is correct. Pope Francis’ order may be mean-spirited, it may be vicious, it may be malevolent, it may be intended to damage the church–but it is also unquestionably lawful and proper for the pope to approve or disapprove of any liturgical format he sees fit, whether from worthy or unworthy motives. He may have adopted a double standard in dealing with the heterodox, whom he favors, and the orthodox, whom he detests. It does not matter. A lawful order is a lawful order. It doesn’t have to be nice. It doesn’t have to please our sensibilities in order to demand our obedience. Francis has as much right to suppress the TLM as Pope St. Pius V did to suppress many pre-Trenten liturgies, which he did do at the same time he issued the prototype of the Tridentine Mass. If Francis were to order bishops and priests to hold church “weddings” for same-sex couples, that order would have to be defied because it would be an unlawful, immoral order which seeks to overturn the natural law, something no man or woman can do, least of all the pope. But this does not do that. It has been said by some saints that Christ values obedience to the lawful exercise of proper church authority by duly empowered actors above all else, regardless of whether that authority is exercised in a wise or kind manner. Perhaps this is a test of obedience to and by Christ. If so, then anyone who counsels defiance of the order is failing that test. “Scooter Toloody” has said what needs to be said. Francis has as much right to crack down on the TLM as Benedict did to widen its use.
Actually it is not lawful. Read the documents of VII and consult a Canon Lawyer.
Mr. Norton, if you care to read Pius V’s document Quo Primum you will quickly conclude that Pope Francis does not have the legal authority to dispense with the TLM. It is very clear.
It is an unlawful order. The Pope does not own the Church. It is not his possession or plaything. He is charged with preserving the Church, instructing the Church in Truth, not in falsehoods. By your logic, the Pope would be within his authority to outlaw the praying of the rosary. This is extent that papolatry has reached in our era.
Bishops chose to ignore the Vatican regarding the blessing of same sex relationships, yet no one screams schism at them. Communion on the hand was banned by the Vatican, but many Bishops ignored that too. The latin mass was never banned, indeed it can never be banned as the Trent declared an anathema on anyone, including a Pope who alters or bans it.
When the Holy See is schismatic, how can defiance of its anti-canonical actions be schismatic? Not everyone idolizes clown and tango Masses like Francis, nor do they value his mendacity.
How rigid of you!.
Just like Our Lord asks of we Eye pluckers. Love your satire.
Not concerned about the pronouncements of Pope Scooter.
What is significant about April 3″
Rumours abound that on that date there will be issued tighter still restrictions on the TLM.
But go to the Rorate Caeli website where it is strongly averred that PF is losing interest in the liturgy war.
Pope Francis has also confirmed, through his lack of any disciplinary actions taken against the ‘dirty schism’ German Bishops, that if you want to perform immoral acts in the Catholic Mass, go to a Progressive Catholic Church in Germany to do so. Pope Francis confirms that you do not need any Vatican permission to do so.
For crying out loud, it’s time for traditional Catholics to practice the same manner of noncompliance that the DemoCatholics already do to support abortion, same-sex deviancy and whatever other demon driven things they allow for.
Scooter Toloody,
Name-calling… the blunt instrument of thoughtless, last ditch argument. Your judgmental and mean-spirited posting is perfectively representative of Pope Francis and his ilk. Congratulations. A little charity ( and humility) on your part would go a long way.
I suggest you follow Mr. Tabish’s soul-saving advice and get to know that which you condemn. I pray for you to find peace of soul.
Is the letter of Pope Francis’, Guardian of Tradition, a magistrial teaching or simply his personal view point as regards the latin liturgy? Clarification is needed in order to stop all the disunity that is prevailing by this issue.
There can be honest disagreement about the direction in which PF is leading the Church, but this tendency to micro-manage the bishops is surely unsettling to the liberal mind.
What previous generations considered sacred remains sacred and can not be abrogated. The problem within the church is the laity are informed of the dubious formation of the Novus ordo, and the manipulation by its designer (Fr.Bugnini). Young Catholics are attracted to the consistent celebration of the tlm, and the spiritual depth of its customs. Young priests are attracted to its direction of prayers to the sacrifice of Christ to the heavenly Father. The Vatican must be aware of the abuses within the N.O, and foster with the bishops an authentic celebration of the N.O ad orientem with the use of some Latin with gregorian chant. Right now priests are celebrating without consistent guidance. Draconian leadership will only foster more strife and confusion within the ranks.