Pope says he spoke truth in private on Myanmar’s trip

aboard the papal plane — Pope Francis on Saturday defended his silence in Myanmar over the plight of Rohingya refugees, saying a public denunciation would have “slammed the door in the face” of his hosts and prevented his message from being heard.

Francis said he chose instead to speak in general terms about human rights in public so that he could engage more frankly in private about what the UN has said is a textbook campaign of ethnic cleansing against Myanmar’s Muslim minority.

Speaking to reporters en route home from Myanmar and Bangladesh, Francis said he was “very, very satisfied” that his message

It’s true I didn’t have the pleasure of slamming the door in their face publicly with a denunciation Pope Francis

had been received in his private meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s powerful military chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing. “It’s true I didn’t have the pleasure of slamming the door in their face publicly with a denunciation,” Francis said. “But I had the satisfaction of dialogue, and letting the other side dialogue, and in this way the message arrived.”

Human rights groups and Rohingya themselves had expressed disappointment that Francis had declined to even refer to the Rohingya by name, much less call out Myanmar’s military for sparking Asia’s worst refugee crisis in decades.

Francis waited until he arrived in Bangladesh to demand the international community intervene to resolve the crisis. —