罗马天主教宗方济各访问缅甸4天后抵达孟加拉国访问。教宗此次出访一直没有公开提到罗兴亚穆斯林难民危机的问题，引起注意。
教宗方济各在缅甸最大城市、曾经是首都的仰光为年轻的天主教徒主持了弥撒后，星期四离开缅甸。
人权活动人士批评教宗方济各没有专门提到罗兴亚人的问题。缅甸人口以佛教徒为主，罗兴亚人是缅甸的一个少数族裔，数十年来一直被剥夺基本权利。缅甸政府将他们视为来自孟加拉国的难民，尽管很多罗兴亚家庭已经在缅甸生活了好几代。
今年8月，缅甸警察在若开邦的哨卡受到罗兴亚激进分子的攻击后，缅甸政府军开始对罗兴亚村庄进行焦土攻击，罗兴亚人的处境更加糟糕。政府军的残酷攻击，以及大规模强奸和肆意杀戮的消息导致62万多罗兴亚人逃到孟加拉国。联合国称之为典型的种族清洗。
教宗方济各以前在公开讲话中谴责了罗兴亚人受到的对待，但是他的顾问建议他在缅甸不要提这个问题，担心会对缅甸的65万天主教徒造成不利影响。
缅甸主教若望·盛赫基星期三对罗兴亚人遭受杀戮的说法提出质疑，呼吁批评缅甸政府的人到现场去研究有关问题的现实和历史，了解真相。
梵蒂冈发言人星期三说，教宗方济各在这个问题上没有失去他的道德权威，并说教宗在与缅甸实际领导人昂山素季和大权在握的军方首脑敏昂兰将军的不公开会谈中可能更直接地谈到这个问题。
预计教宗方济各在孟加拉访问期间会与一些罗兴亚难民见面。
Pope Francis has arrived in Bangladesh after a four-day visit to neighboring Myanmar, a trip marked by his refusal to publicly address the Muslim Rohingya refugee crisis.
The pontiff departed Myanmar Thursday after celebrating a final Mass for young Catholics in Yangon, the country’s largest city and its former capital.
Francis has been criticized by human rights activists for not specifically mentioning the Rohingyas, a minority ethnic group that has been denied basic rights for decades in the majority Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which views them as immigrants from Bangladesh, despite the fact that many families have lived in Myanmar for generations.
Their situation has worsened since August, when the military launched a scorched earth campaign against Rohingya villages in northern Rakhine state in response to attacks on Myanmar police outposts on Rohingya militants. The brutal campaign, including reports of mass rapes and indiscriminate killings, triggered a mass exodus of more than 620,000 Rohingyas into Bangladesh, which the United Nations has described as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
The pope has denounced the treatment of the Rohingyas in previous public remarks, but his advisers counseled him not to speak about the issue while in Myanmar, for fear of a backlash against the 650,000 Catholics in the country.
Myanmar Bishop John Hsane Hgyi went even further Wednesday, casting doubt about the reported atrocities against the Rohingyas, and urging critics of the Myanmar government to go to the scene “to study the reality and history” of the issue and learn the truth.
A Vatican spokesman said Wednesday that Pope Francis has not lost his “moral authority” on the issue, and suggested he may have been far more direct during his private talks with de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and powerful military chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Pope Francis is expected to meet with a group of Rohingya refugees during his stay in Bangladesh.