HO CHI MINH CITY (UCAN): Vietnam’s president, Vo Văn Thưởng, met with the country’s Catholic bishops to thank the Church for its role during the Covid-19 pandemic, speak about his recent visit to the Vatican and strengthen ties including the possibility of opening Catholic schools, media reports say.
The meeting was held at the headquarters of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam in Ho Chi Minh City on August 7, Vatican News reported.
Văn Thưởng was accompanied by a delegation of 10 government officials while the Church team was composed of nine bishops, led by conference president, Archbishop Joseph Nguyễn Năng of Ho Chi Minh City, along with five priests and two nuns.
The visit came after the Vietnamese president met with Pope Francis in the Vatican and signed a landmark agreement on July 27 that would allow a papal representative to reside in the country and open an office there for the first time since Vietnam War ended in 1975 [Sunday Examiner, August 6].
The bishops said in a statement that the meeting with the president was “open and sincere.”
Vo’s first visit to the headquarters of the bishops’ conference is seen as an important step in Catholic circles, considering the difficulties between the Church and the state since 1975.
The Vietnamese president said that the joint efforts of the ruling Communist Party, the state and the people of Vietnam have reaped important achievements in all fields, the Vietnam News Agency [VNA] reported.
He highlighted the contributions of Catholics to this success, especially in the fields of social welfare, charity, pandemic prevention and control, and the spreading of humanitarian spirit, and good values of the nation in general and the community in particular, VNA report added.
Vo said that he was “impressed” by his meeting with Pope Francis, stating that the audience was “longer than expected,” according to Vatican News.
He said he highly appreciated the pope’s words on human fraternity, the need to listen to others by “putting oneself in other people’s position so as to understand them better.”
During the August 7 meeting, Father Đào Nguyên Vũ, head of the Secretariat of the Vietnamese Bishops’ Conference, presented the activities of the Church in the country by offering an overview of Catholic institutions in Vietnam. He said the Church in Vietnam only runs nursery schools, but no other educational institution.
The president reportedly assured that he would consider allowing the Church to start educational institutions.
The Church lost most of its properties after the communists took over and reunified North and South Vietnam in 1975 and confiscated Church institutions. Since then, local religious organisations are only allowed to run daycare facilities and nurseries.
Vatican secretary of state, Pietro Cardinal Parolin, described the recent Holy See-Vietnam agreement as “not just a finishing line” but a “new beginning…a sign of mutual respect and mutual trust,” Vatican News added.
Relations between the Holy See and Vietnam have improved since the 1990s when late Roger Cardinal Etchegaray of France, the then president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, made a series of visits to the country.
