Pope due today

Pope Francis is due here this afternoon on a three-day state visit carrying message of harmony, peace, reconciliation and forgiveness when he eschewed even using the word ‘Rohingya’ in the address he delivered in Myanmar on Tuesday. 
His visit to Myanmar has so far been marked by his avoidance in public of the crisis in northern Rakhine state and Myanmar’s treatment of its Rohingya Muslim community, according to Agence France-Presse.
He called on Myanmar’s top Buddhist monks, on Wednesday, to conquer ‘prejudice and hatred’ in a country ravaged by communal divisions, after holding the nation’s first-ever papal mass attended by 150,000 Catholics.
Francis has previously spoken out strongly in defence of the ethnic minority community, whom the UN has described as victims of an ethnic cleansing campaign by Myanmar’s military. 
‘If we are to be united, as is our purpose, we need to surmount all forms of misunderstanding, intolerance, prejudice and hatred,’ the Pope told the orange-robed monks of Myanmar’s highest Buddhist body, called Sangha Maha Nayka.
Radical monks have played a key role in fanning Islamaphobia in Myanmar and hardening attitudes towards the Rohingyas. 
The pontiff had to give audience to Myanmar’s powerful military chief immediately after his arrival
at the administrative capital Naypyidaw on Monday. 
Francis’s meeting with General Min Aung Hlaing had been scheduled for Wednesday morning, but was moved up to just a few hours after he landed in Naypyidaw, according to The Guardian. 
General Hlaing claimed, in the 15-minute meeting with the pontiff, that there was ‘no religious discrimination’ in the Buddhist-majority country. 
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke didn’t provide details of the private meeting other than that ‘they spoke of the great responsibility of the authorities of the country in this moment of transition.’
The head of the Catholic Church faced a difficult diplomatic balancing act on his first papal visit to Myanmar.
The pontiff said, in a message on his visit to Bangladesh, ‘My visit is to confirm the Catholic community in Bangladesh in its faith and witness to the Gospel that recognises the dignity of every man and woman and calls us to open our hearts to others, especially to the poor and needy,’ according to Reuters.
‘We live in times in which believers and men of goodwill in all places are called to promote reciprocal understanding and respect, and to sustain each other as members of one human family,’ the message reads.
In Dhaka today, president Abdul Hamid is scheduled to receive the pontiff at a formal ceremony with highest honour at Hazrat Shahzalal International Airport. 
He would visit the National Martyrs Memorial at Savar and pay homage to Bangladesh’s founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Bangabandhu Memorial Museum at Dhanmondi in the afternoon. 
The pontiff would meet president Abdul Hamid, senior government officials, diplomats and civil society members at Bangabhaban, official residence of the president. 
The Pope, on Friday, would lead a mass prayer session at Suhrawardi Udyan in presence of about 80,000 Christians. 
He would also meet prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
The pontiff would address a civic reception at Ramna Cathedral where he would meet inter-religious leaders. He is expected to meet a small group of Rohingyas at Ramna Cathedral. 
He would meet, on Saturday, Catholic religious leaders at Tejgaon Church and visit Mother Theresa Bhaban at Tejgaon cemetery in the capital.
He would address a youth gathering at Notre Dame College before his departure for Rome in the evening.
The Pope is scheduled leave Dhaka for Rome on Saturday afternoon.
Over 6,24,000 Rohingyas, mostly women, children and aged people, entered Bangladesh fleeing unbridled murder, arson and rape during ‘security operations’ by Myanmar military in Rakhine, what the United Nations denounced as ethnic cleansing, between August 25 and November 26. 
The ongoing Rohingya influx took the total number of undocumented Myanmar nationals and registered refugees in Bangladesh to over 10,43,000 till Sunday, according to estimates by UN agencies. 

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net