Pope Francis (AFP FILE PHOTO)
The 80-year-old pontiff’s plane left Rome en route for Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, shortly after 2100 GMT.
He would touch down around 0700 GMT on Monday hoping to encourage efforts to contain a crisis that has seen many of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority in the mostly Buddhist Myanmar, forced from their homes and left languishing in squalid refugee camps over the border in Bangladesh.
“I ask you to be with me in prayer so that, for these peoples, my presence is a sign of affinity and hope,” Pope Francis told 30,000 believers in St Peter’s Square, shortly before packing his bags for the diplomatically fraught trip.
Some 620,000 Rohingya, more than half their total number, have fled from Myanmar’s Rakhine state to Bangladesh since August as a result of violence that the United Nations and the United States have described as ethnic cleansing.
Aides said Pope Francis would seek to encourage reconciliation, dialogue, and further efforts to alleviate the crisis following last week’s tentative agreement between the two countries to work towards a return of some of the Rohingya to Myanmar.
1.3 billion Catholics
His message would be spelled out at a Yangon mass expected to be attended by up to a third of the country’s 660,000-strong Catholic community, who would be welcoming a pope to their homeland for the first time.
Pope Francis is also due to meet the country’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and army chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Local church leaders have advised not to even pronounce the word “Rohingya” for fear of inflaming local sensitivities in a country where a virulent brand of anti-Muslim Buddhist nationalism is strong.
Pope Francis has indicated he would heed that advice but he is scheduled to hold a hugely symbolic meeting with a small group of the refugees during his time in Bangladesh, where he flies on Thursday.
Local Church officials hope some 100,000 Catholics would attend an open-air mass in the capital Dhaka that would be subject to tight security in a country where Islamist extremist attacks are on the increase.
In Bangladesh, Pope Francis would be treading in the footsteps of predecessors, John Paul II, who visited Bangladesh in 1986, and Paul VI, who visited what was then East Pakistan in 1970, a year before the country gained independence.
The visit reflects one of the priorities Pope Francis has established for his time as the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics – reaching out to marginalized believers in peripheral regions where they often form part of tiny minorities.
Pope Francis also attaches great importance to the development of the Church in Asia, where the number of Catholics is growing – up nine percent between 2010 and 2015.
He has already visited South Korea, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines, and Bangladesh would be the 31st country he has traveled to since his election in 2014. /kga