Pope Francis preaches forgiveness in Myanmar

Pope Francis, preaching a message of forgiveness to a huge crowd in his first public Mass in the predominantly Buddhist nation of Myanmar, urged Myanmar's long-suffering people to resist the temptation to exact revenge for the hurt they have endured.

According to report by local authorities, an estimated 150,000 people turned out at Yangon's Kyaikkasan Ground park for the Mass.

Local government officials and senior members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party were on hand, as were members of Myanmar's mostly Christian Kachin minority, wearing traditional dress.

Francis has said his aim in coming to Myanmar is to minister to its Catholic community, which numbers around 660,000 people, or just over 1 per cent of the population of about 52 million.

His trip has been overshadowed, though, by Myanmar's military operations targeting the Rohingya Muslim minority in northern Rakhine state.

In his first public comments on Tuesday, Francis told Suu Kyi and other government authorities that Myanmar's future lay in respecting the rights of all its people - "none excluded" - but he refrained from mentioning the "Rohingya" by name.

In his homily on Wednesday, Francis referred to the suffering that Myanmar's ethnic and religious minorities have endured, a reference to the decades of conflicts between Myanmar's ethnic minorities and the military that continue today in parts of the country.

I know that many in Myanmar bear the wounds of violence, wounds both visible and invisible," Francis told the crowd in Italian that was translated into Burmese.

While the temptation is to respond with revenge, Francis urged instead a response of "forgiveness and compassion."

Speaking from an altar erected on a traditional Buddhist-style stage, the pope said the way of revenge is not the way of Jesus.