Pope celebrates in Bangladesh

dhaka - Pope Francis dedicated a mass for more than 100,000 people on Friday in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. During the service he dedicated sixteen priests. Of the more than 160 million inhabitants of the country, the majority is Muslim; Catholics make up only 0.24 percent of the population.

Later on Friday, the Pope speaks during an interreligious meeting with eighteen Rohingya Muslims who have fled from neighboring Myanmar. Before he arrived in Bangladesh in Myanmar, the pope had been impressed by the fact that he did not pronounce the word Rohingya. For political and security reasons, the Pope refrained from visiting a refugee camp in Bangladesh. 'Our government did not want it,' said the archbishop of Chittagong, Moses Costa.

Bangladesh has captured more than 620,000 Rohingya who have fled Myanmar due to an offensive of the Myanmar army against armed insurgents in the state of Rakhine. Runaway Rohingya say that there has been mass murder and raping and that entire villages have been burnt down.