Charles Maung Bo, Cardinal Charles Maung Bo is the Archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar. In 2015 he became the first cardinal from that southeast Asian country.
Bo was born on October 29, 1948, in Monhla, near Mandalay, Burma, to parents John and Juliana Aye Tin. Bo’s father, a farmer, died when he was 2. Thereafter, he was sent to a Salesian-run boarding school in Mandalay. From 1962 to 1976, Bo studied at the Nazareth Aspirantate, a Salesian seminary, in Anisakan village, near Maymyo (now Pyin Oo Lwin).
He was ordained a priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco order April 9, 1976. In 1985 he was appointed as prefect of the Apostolic Prefecture in Lashio. In 1990, when the prefecture was elevated to a diocese, Pope John Paul II appointed Bo its first bishop. Bo received episcopal consecration on Dec. 16, 1990. In March 1996, he was transferred to become the Bishop of the Diocese of Pathein, and on June 7, 2003, John Paul II named him Archbishop of Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city.
He served as president of the Episcopal Conference of Myanmar from 2000-2006.
On January 4, 2015, Pope Francis announced that he would make Bo a cardinal, and formally elevated him at the consistory held on March 14, 2015.