Vietnamnese president seeks diplomatic ties with Vatican

President Nguyen Minh Triet made the comments ahead of his trip to Italy that starts Wednesday. Vatican said Triet will meet with Pope Benedict XVI this week.

“We are working to open diplomatic relations with the Vatican,” Triet told Milan daily Corriere della Sera during an interview in Hanoi.

Earlier this year, Benedict expressed hope for a “healthy” relationship between the church and Vietnam's communist government, which confiscated church property after taking power from the French in 1945.

Vietnam's 6 million Roman Catholics are the second largest Catholic-community in Asia.

Vatican Radio said this week the Vietnamese authorities still insist on approving most church appointments and closely monitor religious groups. Yet, the radio said, the relations “have warmed in recent years with easing of restrictions on the Catholic community.”

Triet described himself as an atheist, but said in the interview he goes to churches and pagodas because “I recognize the cultural value” of religious feasts.

Triet's audience with the pope has raised hopes among Vietnam's Catholics that the encounter could yield an invitation for Benedict to make a pilgrimage to their country.

Thawing of relations, however, have occasionally been punctuated by violence.

Earlier this year, clashes broke out at a makeshift place of worship in central Vietnam, which had been erected on the site where American bombs had destroyed a church during the Vietnam War.

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