Pope Francis met with members of the Italian Diocese of Crema, the hometown of Fr. Alfredo Cremonesi. Now Blessed, Alfredo was martyred during his missionary work in Bruma, which is now Myanmar, in 1953.
The Pope asked for prayers for the country of Myanmar and emphasized the tenacity and passion Fr. Alfredo had for serving Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
POPE FRANCIS
In the writings left by Father Alfredo, there is a very beautiful sentence about the missionary spirit. It goes like this: We missionaries are really nothing. Ours is the most mysterious and wonderful work that is given to man, not to perform, but to see: to glimpse souls being converted is a miracle greater than any miracle.
Myanmar has suffered decades of civil unrest, poverty, and economic turmoil, creating what some historians described as the world's longest civil war. The ongoing violence, increased by the military coup in 2021, has caused over a million people to flee the country and left hundreds of thousands displaced internally.
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