Communist Vietnam's PM to meet pope next week
HANOI - Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will visit
Pope Benedict XVI next week in the first meeting between a leader of the communist nation and a head of the Catholic church, officials confirmed.
Dung will visit Italy on Thursday, January 25 and "on this occasion, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will meet with the Pope Benedict XVI" in the
Vatican, the foreign ministry in Hanoi said in a statement.
A Vatican spokesman later confirmed the scheduled meeting.
Vietnam and the Holy See have no formal diplomatic relations, and a meeting between Dung and the leader of the Catholic church is seen as a significant step toward establishing bilateral ties.
About six million of Vietnam's 84 million people are Catholics -- the second largest group of followers in Southeast Asia after the Philippines.
Thursday's statement followed several conflicting reports about a possible meeting as officials in the Vatican and Vietnam declined to comment.
Vietnam's communist government has always worried about the potential of religious groups -- both Christian and Buddhist -- to undermine its hold on power, but conditions have improved considerably for Catholics in recent years.
In November 2005 thousands of Roman Catholics packed the streets of the capital for the unprecedented ordination of 57 priests by a Vatican cardinal at Hanoi's St Joseph's cathedral.
The Hanoi regime had tense relations with the previous pope, John Paul II, who was deemed a contributor to the defeat of communism in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe.
But it congratulated Benedict XVI soon after he became pope in 2005, saying it hoped he would "contribute toward accelerating the relations between Vietnam and the Vatican so that they grow day by day."
Foreign observers in Hanoi have noted a thaw in Vietnam-Vatican relations in recent months, saying normalisation of ties is only a matter of time.
"It's a new step forward," said one informed Western source on Thursday. "It seems unlikely that the establishment of diplomatic ties will happen overnight, but this meeting is very significant.
"For Rome, it's also a way to show that when a door opens, the Vatican wants to go ahead. There are some outstanding issues, including the right of the Catholic church to edit its own newspaper and some land issues."
Bishop Nguyen Van Yen of Phat Diem Cathedral in northern Ninh Binh province said he had received no official confirmation of the meeting but said it had been expected by Catholic faithful and would be "very good news."
"The meeting will help improve relations between the Vatican and the Vietnamese state and we, as Catholic followers, will benefit from better relations.
"I expect the two sides will be more sympathetic toward each other and the government will have a deeper understanding of Catholic issues and be more open."
The bishop added that he hoped the government would in future allow more priest seminaries to be set up, saying, "there is only one such school for the whole northern region. It's not enough."
Nguyen Xuan Thuy, spokesman for the Hanoi bishop's office, also said he had not yet heard of the meeting, but added that the Catholic church in Vietnam hoped it would lead to the establishment of diplomatic ties and greater dialogue.
"The Catholic followers of Vietnam really expect a visit by
Pope Benedict to Vietnam, as other popes have visited other countries," he told AFP. "Until now, no pope has visited Vietnam."
Vietnam's foreign ministry spokesman Le Dung said the prime minister, while in Rome, would also seek to promote relations with Italy, "especially in the fields of economics, commerce and investment."
The premier was then expected to attend the
World Economic Forum of political and business leaders that runs until January 28 in Davos, Switzerland.
By Frank Zeller - Agence France Presse - January 18, 2007.
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