Or more specifically when he gets between the Muslims and the Buddhists in Burma.
Scratching his head: How can two “peaceful” religions be killing each other?
See Pope in a pickle by George Neumayr at American Spectator (hat tip: Judy).
(Before you go on with your laugh, you need to know that the Buddhists do not recognize the label ‘Rohingya’ because they think the Muslims in Burma (aka Myanmar) are simply Bangladeshi Muslims who moved into Burma illegally and deserve no special label. I’ve followed the issue for ten years and have a huge archive, Rohingya Reports, here. The latest outbreak of violence that began in 2012 resulted from a brutal rape and murder of a Buddhist girl by a gang of Muslims, something the media never mentions! You also need to know that the US has admitted thousands of Rohingya to America, most of them arriving in recent years.)
In late August, the New York Times reported on a controversy only a pope like Francis would bother to court. Like many of his fellow Jesuits, Pope Francis exudes enthusiasm for every religion except his own. Out of this hyper-ecumenism has come a torrent of flaky tributes to what his predecessors would have called “false religions” and silly trips to remote countries with almost no Catholics. The Times reported on one such upcoming trip to Myanmar/Burma: “Pope’s Planned Visit to Myanmar Risks Stoking Religious Tensions.”
The tensions to which the article refers don’t involve Catholics. There aren’t enough of them around to start a fight. The article refers to the fighting between Muslims and Buddhists. The latter group evidently finds the pope’s Islamophilia annoying and wants him to keep his nose out of their business. In February, Pope Francis rebuked Burma’s Buddhists for mistreating Muslims from Bangladesh who call themselves the Rohingya: “They have been suffering, they are being tortured and killed, simply because they uphold their Muslim faith.”
[….]
Besides, talking about his “Rohingya brothers” gives him a break from the difficult work of having to explain away jihad. Here is an opportunity, as Vatican correspondent Sandro Magister pointed out, where he can defend Muslims in the role of the persecuted instead of the persecuting. But the problem, as Magister notes, is that it also puts him in the awkward position of criticizing Buddhism, another religion that he is inclined to cast as impeccably peaceful. Maybe he can find a way to blame the tensions on Catholics, whose numbers in Burma’s dioceses have swelled to the point where they can fit into the back of a mini-van.
The Times gingerly approaches this squabbling among two groups of religionists it normally wants to protect and sanitize. The Times is also loath to criticize an interfering liberal pope. But even from its elliptical reporting one gets the sense that the Buddhists would prefer that the pope virtue-signal somewhere else…
This is a must read for those of you who love irony (and how dumb Leftist drivel gets them in trouble).