The "moral authority" of Pope Francis is undiminished despite his failure to address the Rohingya crisis head-on during a visit to Myanmar, the Vatican said late Wednesday, defending a papal trip framed by the plight of the Muslim minority. The UN and US say the Rohingya are victims of an ethnic cleansing campaign by Myanmar's military that has sent 620,000 of them fleeing into Bangladesh since late August.
Francis has previously spoken out strongly in defence of the Muslim group, calling them his "brothers and sisters" and rights groups had urged him to publically confront Myanmar on its treatment of the minority. In a vigorous defence of the visit - the first ever by a pope to Myanmar's tiny Catholic minority - a Vatican spokesman said papal diplomacy had its limits. "People are not expected to solve impossible problems and the moral authority of the pope stands," Vatican spokesman Greg Burke told reporters at the tail end of a four-day trip to Myanmar.
"I'm very happy that people think the pope is all powerful but he's not." His visit has been as much political as religious in a country on the defensive after global outrage over the plight of the Rohingya.
Comments
Comments are closed.