Vatican says normalization of Vietnam ties closer to reality

Nguyen Tan Dung, Pope Benedict and their delegations held talks for about 25 minutes in the Pope’s private study.

A statement called the visit an “important step towards the normalization of bilateral relations” and added that the Holy See was pleased that recent years had seen “concrete progress” for religious freedom in the country.

The meeting was seen as perhaps the last prelude to full links between the Holy See and one of Asia’s biggest Catholic countries after decades of tense relations.

One tenth of officially atheist Vietnam’s 82 million population is Catholic.

Hundreds of thousands of Catholics moved from North Vietnam to South Vietnam when the country split after French colonial rule ended and became some of Hanoi’s most implacable foes.

The Vatican’s ties with Hanoi have suffered because the Church is associated with Vietnam’s colonial past and because the government did not always agree to the appointment of bishops by previous Popes.

The Vatican statement said outstanding problems would be discussed in the hope that the Church in Vietnam could enjoy full cooperation with the state and that Catholics could make positive contributions to the country’s development.

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