Pope starts visit to South Asia

Pope Francis on Monday begins a six-day trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh. While attention will focus on how Francis addresses the Rohingya Muslim crisis, the trip also holds huge significance for the tiny Catholic communities in each country.

Those Catholics face obstacles that include discrimination, an inability to land leadership roles and threats of violence. Many Christians hope the pope’s visit will highlight the plight of the poor and of minority religious groups, including their own.

There are 660,000 Catholics in Myanmar, just over 1 percent of the population of 53 million. In total, Christians make up just over 6 percent of the population. Catholicism was brought to the country more than 500 years ago, and for generations Catholics have played a vital role in developing far-flung rural areas that authorities have found hard to reach. But when the socialist government took power in 1965, most Catholic-based missionary schools, boarding houses and properties were seized by the military at gunpoint. Catholics were later able to slowly rebuild their missions.

Myanmar Catholic leaders say that as members of one of the smallest religious groups in a country dominated by Buddhism, they face discrimination, even if it isn’t typically overt threats or torture.

“There are always challenges to stand up as Catholic and to have strong faith here,” said Rev. Mariano Soe Naing, a spokesman for Myanmar’s Bishops’ Conference.

Christianity is viewed by many as a colonial belief after the country was ruled by the British for a century until its independence in 1948. Likewise, the separation of church and state is considered a foreign imposition.

For the past 18 years, Myanmar has been listed by the U.S. as a “country of particular concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act for having engaged in, or tolerated, severe violations of religious freedom.