Pope Francis Meets with Representatives of Vietnam's Ruling Communist Party where Over 7 Million Catholics Live - Opening the Possibility of a Papal Visit

On January 18th Pope Francis met with a delegation of representatives of the Communist Party of Vietnam at the Vatican. It was a "positive meeting", a sign of a strengthening of relations with the Holy See and also of a possible future visit by the Pontiff to the country. The audience took place in the Vatican Apostolic Palace and the group then moved to the Secretariat of State for a conversation with the Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, and with Monsignor Paul Richard Gallagher, Secretary for the relations with states.

The archbishop judges today's appointment positively, expressing the hope that the Catholic community will be able to benefit from this which is a further step forward in bilateral relations which adds to other important results achieved from a diplomatic point of view. First of all, the agreement in December for the nomination of a pontifical representative resident in Vietnam, the apostolic nuncio to Singapore, the Polish Monsignor Marek Zalewski. This agreement was signed in July on the occasion of President Vo Van Thuong's visit to the Vatican on the basis of the tenth session of the Vietnam-Holy See Joint Working Group, which took place last March 31 in Rome.
Gallagher also announced that he will personally visit Vietnam "in April" and that Secretary of State Parolin will then go there within the year. “We will do things gradually”, explains the prelate, saying he is optimistic - in response to a question - also about the possibility of a visit from Pope Francis himself in the future: “Yes, I think there will be. But there are a couple of steps to take before this is appropriate. I think - explains Gallagher - that the Pope wants to go, certainly the Catholic community really wants the Pope to go and thinks it would be a very beautiful message for the whole region". Vietnam, he adds, is in fact an "important country", "a sort of economic miracle in many respects".
Pope Francis himself had spoken out about the possibility upon returning from a September trip to Mongolia: "If I don't go, John XXIV will certainly go", the Pontiff said in a joke. “It is certain that there will be, because it is a land that deserves to move forward, which has my sympathy”. The whole of Vietnam, added the Pope on the same occasion, “is one of the very beautiful experiences of dialogue that the Church has had in recent times. I would say it's like a sympathy in dialogue. Both sides had the good will to understand each other and to look for ways to move forward, there were problems, but in Vietnam I see that sooner or later the problems will be overcome".
The Pontiff's letter to the Vietnamese Church
Relations between Vietnam and the Holy See were interrupted in 1975, but had seen encouraging developments since 1990. In 2011 Benedict XVI appointed a non-resident pontifical representative. However, as mentioned, the statute for a resident representative is dated 2023. Pope Francis then sent a Letter to the Church of the Asian nation last September, in which he invited the Catholic faithful to live as "good Christians and good citizens", testifying to the love of God "without distinction of religion, race and culture".

Edited from Vatican News with Screenshot