ASIA/MYANMAR - Archbishop Bo: "Communicating mercy means listening to our people"

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Yangon (Agenzia Fides) - "We need to listen to our people in Myanmar: Muslims, the Rohingya, the Ma Ba Tha, the National League for Democracy, civil society, even those who are against democracy. 
Listening is the first task of communication: it serves to build bridges of healing, to break down the walls of misunderstanding, to include the excluded ": said the Archbishop of Yangon, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, during the Mass celebrated on June 12 on the occasion of the Day for communication, which was attended by the Catholic Bishops, religious superiors and all persons engaged in the various Burmese dioceses in the communications field.
In the message to the assembly and sent by the Cardinal to Agenzia Fides, Mgr. Bo recalled: "Conflicts continue to rage in the land of the Shan people, the Kachin and the Karen: we need to listen to the root causes of these conflicts, we need to build bridges among cultures, we need to bring mercy to refugee camps, we need to bring justice in the jade mines, we must bring peace to areas where there is drug trade. We need to listen to the victims but also the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and communicate the message of hope. In this jubilee year the message of mercy should proceed next to the message of peace".
"Over the past six decades - said the Cardinal - communications have been suppressed, and Myanmar has sunk into a tunnel of culture of silence. The dawn of democracy is a blessing, which brings great obligations also for the Catholic Church, the only organization spread across the nation, from north to south. This obligation is to bring mercy, proclaim mercy"; especially "to refugees, migrants, victims of trafficking and drugs, victims of ethnic violence and poverty". Once bound to silence, today the Church brings "the eloquence of mercy through communication", he concluded. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 14/06/2016