Promoting Pope Francis' visit to Vietnam

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh receives the Vatican's Foreign Minister - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

At the reception, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh welcomed the Archbishop and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Vatican to Vietnam and assessed that the first visit to Vietnam by a Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Vatican, especially after the establishment of a permanent representative in Vietnam, is of great significance to the Vietnamese Catholic community, contributing to further strengthening the relationship between Vietnam and the Holy See, which is developing positively.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh believes that the visit of the Vatican Foreign Minister will be a great success and will also be an opportunity for the Minister to visit three Archdioceses and witness firsthand the development of the Vietnamese Catholic community.

Discussing the religious situation in Vietnam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that Vietnam is a multi-religious country with 27 million followers, accounting for 27% of the country's population, of which the Catholic community is growing strongly with more than 7.2 million followers; affirmed that the Vietnamese State implements a consistent policy of respecting and ensuring people's freedom of belief and religion with an increasingly complete system of policies and laws on belief and religion, ensuring a legal corridor for religious activities.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh expressed his hope that the Vietnamese Catholic community would promote the spirit of "respecting God and loving the country", "good parishioners are good citizens", living a good life and following the religion, actively participating in building and implementing the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws, continuing to contribute to strengthening the great national unity and religious unity; the Catholic Church of Vietnam would promote the spirit of patriotism, the fine tradition of attachment, accompanying the nation and continue to actively contribute to the cause of national construction and development.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that the two sides' upgrading of relations to Resident Representative is an important milestone - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh shared Vietnam's development achievements with the goal of a rich people, strong country, strengthening national unity including the Catholic community, building a rule-of-law state by the people, for the people, taking people as the center, subject, goal, and driving force of development. Vietnam's achievements have been recognized and highly appreciated by the international community.

Expressing his delight at the recent progress in the Vietnam-Holy See relationship, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh highly appreciated the two sides' active maintenance of exchanges and contacts between high-ranking leaders as well as the results of the activities of the Vietnam-Vatican Joint Working Group; and the Vietnamese authorities at all levels and localities have facilitated the activities of the Holy See Resident Representative.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that the two sides' upgrading of relations to Resident Representative is an important milestone and the result of a positive exchange process in the spirit of respect, cooperation and mutual understanding, while demonstrating that the Vietnamese State always creates favorable conditions for the activities of religions, including Catholicism.

Archbishop and Vatican Secretary of State Paul Richard Gallagher believes that the Catholic community wants and is able to contribute more to the prosperous development of Vietnam - Photo: VGP/Nhat Bac

Archbishop and Vatican Secretary for Foreign Affairs Paul Richard Gallagher thanked General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong for the Easter greetings and greetings sent to Pope Francis and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh for the Prime Minister, Cardinal Pietro Parolin; expressed his impression of Vietnam's socio-economic development and foreign affairs achievements, and was proud of the contributions of the Vietnamese Catholic community; and believed that the Catholic community wishes and is able to contribute more to the prosperous development of Vietnam.

Archbishop Gallagher, Vatican Secretary for Foreign Affairs, expressed his delight at the positive development of Vietnam-Holy See relations through the maintenance of high-level contacts, as well as the active role of the Vietnam-Vatican Joint Working Group; wished that the two sides would soon organize the 11th meeting in Hanoi; expressed his gratitude to the Vietnamese authorities for continuing to support and facilitate the activities of the Holy See Resident Representative in Vietnam to successfully fulfill the tasks assigned by Pope Francis; and believed that with mutual understanding and sincere dialogue, Vietnam-Holy See relations will achieve new progress.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh agreed with Archbishop and Foreign Minister Paul Richard Gallagher on continuing to promote high-level contacts, including Pope Francis' visit to Vietnam.

On this occasion, the Archbishop and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Holy See conveyed the greetings of Pope Francis to the Vietnamese leaders and conveyed to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh the invitation to visit the Vatican from Cardinal and Prime Minister Pietro Parolin.

During his visit to Vietnam, Archbishop and Foreign Minister Paul Gallagher also met and worked with Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son, Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra and visited the Archdioceses of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Hue.

Ha Van
baochinhphu.vn

Source