(from Yangon) – The Catholic minority in Myanmar continues to ask Pope Francis, who will visit the country from 27 to 30 November before travelling to Bangladesh until 2 December, not to mention the word “Rohingya” because it may have a negative impact on the life of the small community and on the internal balance of the fragile nascent democracy. “It is a sensitive topic that may breed intolerance – local sources connected to the Jesuits told SIR news agency –. We are convinced that the Pope will know how to deal with the issue and decide according to his conscience. He will know what to say or not to say”. Engaged as they are in society, the Jesuits in Myanmar spare no effort to help refugees, families in need, and young people, and to invest in education so as to contribute to the development of their country which, for the first time after 54 years of military rule, with the victory of the party of the de facto leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, has regained hope. But the crisis in Myanmar’s state of Rakhine – where the 620,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees who fled to Bangladesh to escape violence by the army come from – has further exacerbated the situation. The Jesuit Refugee Service is involved in assisting the displaced in Cox’s Bazar, where Caritas Bangladesh supports 29,000 families. “We want to continue to assist refugees and those who suffer – they say – and at the same time keep this Government alive: because if you criticize democracy, the army could take advantage of that and seize back power”. Vocations among the Jesuits are on the rise in Myanmar: there are currently about thirty young seminarians, and members of the local clergy cannot wait to meet their brother and pontiff. They say they hope that the Pope will meet the Jesuits in a private meeting on 29 November, as often happens during the Papal trips. In Yangon, the Jesuits work in a very poor slum and in the Muslim Quarter, where so far they have rebuilt 600 houses destroyed by Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Their main focus is on education, on training young people in schools and academies without distinction of ethnicity or religion. There are also Rohingya Muslims among them and coexistence is peaceful.