In many ways Pope Francis is following in the footsteps of his great travelling predecessor St. John Paul II in his apostolic visits to Thailand and Japan. The first Asia trip of St. John Paul II in 1981 included Japan, and in 1984 he visited Thailand.
But the comparison appears to end right there — at least with reference to Thailand. The pope’s trip to Japan has a point and it doesn’t get much bigger than global peace.
Yet his visit to Thailand does not appear to have a point at all beyond some motherhood blandishments, and that is a big missed opportunity for the Vatican. The Holy See appears to be uncharacteristically dropping the ball on the Thai visit, but maybe for reasons that are beyond its control.
The message from the Vatican is as standard as it can get: “Christ’s Disciples, Missionary Disciples.” It’s the 350th anniversary of the Vatican’s mission to Thailand (formerly Siam) but most of the visit is stuffed with meetings with dignitaries, bishops and priests and the standard stadium Mass, a Mass for young people and a hospital visit. But that is it.
Like St. John Paul II, Pope Francis’ trip to Japan has a singular and laser-focused point — peace and the end of war, which has tortured mankind since antiquity.
Pope Francis follows his predecessor to Nagasaki, where he will hold a Mass, and to Hiroshima, where he will hold a prayer service for peace. Like the saintly pontiff, Pope Francis will visit the shrines of 26 martyrs, heady stuff compared to Thailand, a last-minute add-on that has even bewildered some in Rome.
The Japan visit gains even more poignancy because it will take place in the shadow of nuclear-armed Russia, China and North Korea. And at a time when the United States has withdrawn from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty that bans land-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometres.
Russia remains in dispute with Japan over Kuril island and the two have a 200-kilometre maritime border. This will add huge weight to Pope Francis’ visits to the nuclear-bombed cities of Japan and to the meetings with survivors and their families. In recent months, North Korea has seemed the most likely of those three nations to actually use a weapon if rhetoric is anything to go by. At the time of St. John Paul II’s visit, the Cold War and its nuclear arms race were still raging. We do not learn, it seems, from even our very recent history.
Pope Francis’ Thai schedule is disappointing. Many local clergy and lay Catholics lay the blame at the feet of Thailand’s Cardinal Francis Xavier Kriengsak Kovitvanit, who reportedly is not especially popular among his own clergy or the substantial number or foreign clergy in Bangkok.
Thailand is the regional hub for Catholic charity Caritas International and the Jesuit Refugee Service — these religious are peeved at being left out of proceedings. The only exception regarding the religious are the Jesuits, the pope’s own order with whom he spends time on each international visit.
Indeed, the closest Pope Francis will come in Thailand, even vaguely, to the poor and dispossessed will be in the constrained environment of a Catholic hospital for the disabled.
Local Catholics are wondering why there is not a meeting with refugees, or a visit to a refugee camp, perhaps at Mae Sot or other refugee camps on the Myanmar-Thai border. After all, John Paul II spoke to refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in a camp south of Bangkok for several hours.
Refugees close to pope’s heart
Thailand is the Southeast Asian epicentre for refugees, and there are hundreds of thousands of both registered and unregistered refugees in the country. The Catholic Church, led by the Jesuit Refugee Service, which has its Asian headquarters in Bangkok despite the country’s tiny Catholic minority, has done long-term and consistent work helping these people.
It is arguable there is no issue closer to Pope Francis’ heart than refugees. He has been a tireless advocate and supporter of dispossessed people. As he celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s Square on the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Sept. 29, once again he denounced “the globalization of indifference” and said “a painful truth” is that “our world is daily more and more elitist, more cruel towards the excluded.” The same might be said, about this trip, of the Thai Church.
Francis continued: “As Christians, we cannot be indifferent to the tragedy of old and new forms of poverty, to the bleak isolation, contempt and discrimination experienced by those who do not belong to our group,” adding that “we cannot remain insensitive, our hearts deadened, before the misery of so many innocent people. We must not fail to weep. We must not fail to respond.”
The plight of Pakistani Catholic refugees has been well documented in coverage that has been led by this very publication. This week we revealed that Pakistani Catholics in Bangkok are too afraid to attend the papal Masses. The Thai Church could help facilitate this, but it seems it is unwilling or perhaps fearful of upsetting the government with which it has cosy elitist ties at senior levels.
There are other issues very close to the pope’s heart and mission that could be raised in Thailand and brought to life for a global audience in much the same way he did with the Rohingya crisis during his 2017 trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh.
There are the slave fishermen drawn from Burmese, Cambodia and Lao economic refugees who also work in often dangerous and underpaid construction jobs. He could remind the world of the Rohingya crisis ongoing over the border in Myanmar, and there are plenty of Rohingya refugees in Thailand along with scores who have perished in people-smuggling camps.
Then there is the sectarian conflict in the south between the Thai military and Muslim separatists that has claimed tens of thousands of lives — a conflict that fits in with the message of peace Francis will take to Japan.
Pope Francis could bookend his trip with a visit to the excellent Hellfire Pass Burma Railway Museum, another look at the Japanese war experience that would help him better understand what life was like as a prisoner of the Japanese, and how their notorious brutality was probably one of the reasons the Americans dropped nuclear bombs instead of sacrificing more of their own.
In doing so, he could highlight the stunning forgiveness that has come from Australian, British, New Zealand and Asian civilians.
Each one of these is a singular and powerful missed opportunity.
The soft schedule in Thailand could change, of course — and this is where Francis could work his special magic.
Indeed, ucanews understands that questions are already being asked in Rome.
This pope has a habit of getting personally involved in his international travel; he sidestepped normal diplomatic channels to get to Myanmar and has a habit of making even the most apparently anodyne situations suddenly work so well for him, exemplified by his visit to the Mexico-US border. Celebrating Mass in Ciudad Juarez, he offered a stinging critique of leaders on both sides of the border, saying that the “forced migration” of thousands of Central Americans is a “human tragedy” and “humanitarian crisis.”
So maybe Thailand should prepare for a surprise.
- Michael Sainsbury is a journalist and photographer. He was commissioned by UCAN to write a series of comment pieces ahead of the Pope’s visit to Asia.
- First published by UCANews.org. Republished with permission.
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