Australia’s Catholic bishops have been told Myanmar is going through a “polycrisis” five years after the military coup.

Cardinal Charles Maung Bo was speaking on the opening day of the biannual plenary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference in Sydney on May 8.

The Archbishop of Yangon said his country was going through simultaneous economic, employment, social, health and education crises.

Prices were rapidly rising, jobs were being shed, more than 3.5 million people were displaced and there was a failure in basic health care and education.

Among young people in particular, the Cardinal noted, daily life is increasingly defined by insecurity, psychological strain, and a loss of trust in the future.

“We remain a people of hope,” Cardinal Bo told the bishops’ meeting.

He said Catholic Mission had shown “unwavering solidarity”, as he thanked Australian Catholics for their generosity.

“Your solidarity is not an abstract idea … it is a light in the darkness,” he said.

“Your support … reminds our suffering people they are not forgotten by the universal church.”

He said as this year marks the centenary of World Mission Sunday it is a reminder that mission is “not the work of missionaries but the responsibility of the whole church”.

“Your partnership with us is not just charity – it is communion.”

Cardinal Bo asked for prayers for the people of Myanmar, who believed “one day peace will return”.

“We will remember the church in Australia walked with us.”

Cardinal Bo led a short ceremony with the bishops to commission the new director of Catholic Mission in Australia, Peter Gates.

Myanmar’s first cardinal was born in Monhla Village in 1948 and joined the Salesians of Don Bosco as a young man.

He was ordained a priest in 1976 and served in remote and vulnerable communities where education, pastoral care and human dignity were often under threat.

While serving as Bishop of Lashio in 1990 and moved by the urgent missionary needs of northern Myanmar, Cardinal Bo founded the Missionaries of St Paul with a small group of young missionaries committed to serving supporting those most forgotten.

Appointed Archbishop of Yangon, the largest city of Myanmar, in 2003 and ordained cardinal in 2015, Cardinal Bo is considered a respected voice for peace, reconciliation and human rights in Myanmar and beyond.

Through his partnership with Catholic Mission, Cardinal Bo continues to support initiatives that expand access to quality education across Myanmar.

(Image: Peter Gates, Cardinal Charles Bo and Archbishop Timothy Costelloe at the commissioning of Mr Gates as Catholic Mission national director for Australia. Photo by Paul Osborne, Australian Catholic Bishops Conference)