Burma’s first cardinal has said that the country’s Muslim minority could face a violent backlash if the Pope uses the term “Rohingya” on his visit there next week.
Cardinal Charles Bo told the American website Crux that if Pope Francis chose to use the term “Rohingya”, “there could be demonstrations at once, going after the Muslims”.
Pope Francis will be the first Pope to visit Burma when he arrives on Monday.
“Rohingya” is used by the country’s Muslim minority to define themselves. The United Nations has accused the Burmese military of carrying out ethnic cleansing against them.
Cardinal Bo said that if Pope Francis were to use the term, it could make it harder for the government and communities to “work in a peaceful way later on”, although he said he thought the Pope would not give it “a political connotation”.
“If he does use it, then it could be very bad for the military, the government and the Buddhist community,” the cardinal said. He noted that the Pope would be “walking a very tight rope”.
Pope Francis has said he wants to strengthen Catholics in their commitment to faith and charity and to encourage all efforts “to build harmony and cooperation” among people of all religions.
In a video message to the people of Burma published last week, the Pope said: “We are living at a time when religious believers and people of goodwill everywhere sense the need to grow in mutual understanding and respect and to support each other as members of our one human family, for all of us are God’s children.”
About 90 per cent of Burma’s 54 million people are Buddhist. Christians and Muslims each account for four per cent of the population and one per cent is Hindu.
“I ask everyone to pray that my days among you will be a source of hope and encouragement to everyone,” he said.
Francis calls for silence before Mass, not ‘chitchat’
Catholics should prepare to “meet Jesus” in silence before Mass instead of engaging in “chitchat”, the Pope has said.
“Silence is so important,” he said at his Wednesday general audience. “Remember what I told you last time: we are not going to a show. Silence prepares us and accompanies us.”
The Pontiff said the Eucharist as a form of prayer was “the highest, the most sublime and, at the same time, the most concrete” way of encountering God’s love.
“This is the greatest grace: to experience that the Eucharist is the privileged moment to be with Jesus and, through him, with God and with our brothers and sisters,” the Pope said.
In the Gospels, he continued, Jesus teaches his disciples that the first thing needed to pray “is to know how to say ‘father’” and to trust in God with the humility of a child.
Christians also must allow themselves to be “surprised by the living encounter with the Lord,” he said, and not simply “talk to God like a parrot,” repeating the words of prayers without thinking.
“The encounter with God is a living encounter,” the Pope said departing from his prepared remarks. “It is not an encounter of a museum.”
Pope blesses new Bible museum
Pope Francis has sent his blessing to the newly opened Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.
The message, from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, said the Pope hoped the museum would promote a better understanding of the Bible and its message.
The museum, which includes a replica of the Vatican Library, cost $500 million and was funded by the Green family, the Evangelical owners of the Hobby Lobby chain of shops.
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