Pope to confront diplomatic test during Asia visit
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis heads to Myanmar and Bangladesh with the international community excoriating Myanmar’s crackdown on Rohingya Muslims as “ethnic cleansing” but his own church resisting the label and defending Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the only hope for democracy.
Francis will be walking a fraught diplomatic tightrope during the visit this week, which will include separate meetings with Suu Kyi, the powerful head of Myanmar’s military as well as a small group of Rohingya.
Francis has defined his papacy by his frequent denunciations of injustices committed against refugees, and he is expected to speak out strongly against the Rohingya plight. But he is also the guest of Myanmar’s government and must look out for the wellbeing of his own flock, a minority of just 659,000 Catholics in the majority Buddhist nation of 51 million.
“Let’s just say it’s very interesting diplomatically,” Vatican spokesman Greg Burke responded when asked if Francis’ 21st foreign trip would be his most difficult.
The Rev. Thomas Reese, an American Jesuit commentator, was more direct: “I have great admiration for the pope and his abilities, but someone should have talked him out of making this trip,” Reese wrote recently on Religion News Service.
Reese argued that Francis’ legacy as a champion of the oppressed will come up against the harsh reality of blowback for Myanmar’s minority Christians if he goes too far in defending the Rohingya against the military’s “clearance operations” in Rakhine state.
“If he is prophetic, he puts Christians at risk,” Reese said. “If he is silent about the persecution of the Rohingya, he loses moral credibility.”
Francis already has been urged by the Catholic Church in Myanmar and his handpicked cardinal, Charles Bo, to refrain from even using the term “Rohingya,” which is rejected by most in Myanmar. Francis has used the term in the past, when he condemned the “persecution of our Rohingya brothers,” denounced their suffering and called for them to receive “full rights.”
Myanmar’s government and most of the Buddhist majority don’t recognize the Rohingya as an ethnic group, insisting they are Bengali migrants from Bangladesh living illegally in the country. It has denied them citizenship, even though they have lived in Myanmar for generations.
The Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said Francis would likely call for a lasting solution for the Rakhine Muslims that takes into account “the importance for the people of having a nationality.”
The situation on the ground has deteriorated badly since Rohingya militants attacked security positions in poverty wracked Rakhine in August. Myanmar security forces responded with a scorched-earth campaign against Rohingya villages that the U.N., U.S. and human rights groups have labeled as textbook “ethnic cleansing.”
More than 620,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, where they are living in squalid refugee camps.
Bo has defended Suu Kyi as Myanmar’s only hope for democracy, saying criticism against her was “unfair.”