The day of fasting and prayer for peace in Myanmar on 26 March

A Lenten initiative from the country’s bishops, with a call to pray “that God may grant his peace to the world and to Myanmar, and that there may be mutual understanding and progress in unity”. In a country where civil society has been systematically dismantled, the importance of such gestures, which also draw the world’s attention to the suffering of the people of Myanmar.

Yangon (AsiaNews) - In a pastoral letter published during this Lent, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar (CBCM) has invited all the faithful to observe 26 March 2026 as a special day of intense prayer and fasting for peace in Myanmar and throughout the world, a spiritual witness that comes as the country enters its sixth year under the control of a military junta responsible for widespread and systematic human rights abuses.

Signed by Cardinal Charles Bo, president of the CBCM, and Bishop Noel Saw Naw Aye, secretary general, the letter opens with a Lenten appeal for penance, conversion of heart and a deeper relationship with God, yet does not shy away from addressing the urgent humanitarian crisis at its core. “We need to offer special prayers for peace in the world, especially in the Middle East and Myanmar,” the letter states, citing Pope Leo XIV’s reminder that peace is built through the concrete practice of love, compassion and mutual understanding.

Cardinal Bo, one of the most authoritative Catholic voices in Asia and a long-standing supporter of the people of Myanmar, has repeatedly described the situation as a “catastrophe of human suffering”. His willingness to speak from within the country whilst the junta tightens its grip on civil society, the media and religious institutions makes the CBCM’s pastoral witness all the more significant.

The letter concludes by invoking the prayer for peace of St Francis of Assisi, an invocation that has become a point of reference for the Catholic community in Myanmar, a country where the Church represents a small but deeply committed minority, particularly amongst the ethnic communities that make up a significant part of the persecuted populations.

In a country where civil society has been systematically dismantled, independent media shut down and the political opposition imprisoned or forced into exile, the Catholic Church, together with other religious institutions, remains one of the few organised voices capable of speaking publicly about the human condition. The CBCM’s letters, distributed to parishes throughout Myanmar, reach communities in conflict zones otherwise isolated from the outside world.

The designation of 26 March as a day of prayer and fasting is a moral statement: the suffering of the people of Myanmar demands a response from the faith community. It echoes the Church’s long tradition of using liturgical acts as forms of public witness, especially when other channels of advocacy and representation are closed.

Myanmar has plunged into crisis since the military takeover in February 2021, when the Myanmar armed forces seized power, overthrew the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and unleashed one of the most brutal crackdowns in the country’s modern history. What followed has been documented by the United Nations and leading human rights organisations as constituting crimes against humanity.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), over 3 million people have been internally displaced since the coup, with thousands of civilians killed by airstrikes, artillery bombardments and targeted killings. Churches, schools, hospitals and entire villages have been razed to the ground. Ethnic communities, including the Kachin, Karen, Chin and Kayah peoples, have suffered disproportionately as the army has intensified its campaigns against civilian populations in border regions.

Myanmar is not simply a country in political turmoil. It is a country where the instruments of the state have been turned against its own people in ways that the international community increasingly describes in the language of international criminal law. The conduct of the Myanmar military includes: mass extrajudicial killings; systematic torture and sexual violence used as weapons of war; destruction of civilian infrastructure; the imposition of famine-like conditions through siege warfare; and the mass imprisonment of journalists, religious leaders, lawyers and pro-democracy activists.

The genocide against the Rohingya, whose roots predate the 2021 coup, continues to cast a long shadow. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is examining the case brought by The Gambia under the Genocide Convention, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened investigations into crimes related to the deportation and persecution of the Rohingya. Since the 2021 coup, these crimes have intensified and expanded. Air strikes against civilian markets, schools and churches in Chin State, the Sagaing Region and Karen State have been documented by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. The military has deployed drones and incendiary attacks against rural communities. The UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar has described these acts as crimes against humanity and has called for an international arms embargo, a measure repeatedly blocked in the UN Security Council by China and Russia.

Against this backdrop of violence and impunity, the bishops’ pastoral letter outlines three pillars of action for the faithful during this Lent: prayer, fasting and charity. The faithful are invited to pray “that God may grant his peace to the world and to Myanmar, and that there may be mutual understanding and progress in unity”; to fast as an act of solidarity with the suffering of Christ and the people of Myanmar; and to practise charity by supporting and helping the poor and the displaced.

For the international Catholic community, the bishops’ letter is also a call to stand in solidarity, on 26 March, with the Church in Myanmar; to amplify calls for accountability for serious human rights violations; to press governments to impose targeted sanctions on the military junta; and to support humanitarian organisations working to assist the 18 million people in Myanmar who are currently in need of aid.

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