President Tran Dai Quang meets Pope Francis

On the evening of November 23 local time (early morning of November 24 Hanoi time), at the invitation of Pope Francis, President Tran Dai Quang visited the Vatican, met with Pope Francis and met with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin.

President meets Pope Francis. Photo: VNA

Pope Francis welcomed and highly appreciated the visit of President Tran Dai Quang, affirming that this is an opportunity for Vietnam and the Holy See to enhance mutual understanding, thereby promoting bilateral relations. The Pope recalled the good impressions during his meetings with high-ranking Vietnamese leaders in recent years and expressed his affection for Vietnam. The Holy See highly appreciated Vietnam's socio-economic development achievements and Vietnam's extensive public consultation before passing the Law on Belief and Religion.

President Tran Dai Quang thanked the Pope for his good sentiments towards Vietnam and expressed his delight at the progress in bilateral relations in recent times. The President affirmed that Vietnam has consistently implemented the policy of respecting and ensuring freedom of belief and religion for all people, while constantly improving the legal framework to ensure those rights.

President Tran Dai Quang and Pope Francis highly appreciated the positive contributions of the Vietnamese Catholic community in recent times; agreed that the Vietnam-Vatican relationship has made positive progress, demonstrated through high-level contacts in recent years and the two sides maintaining dialogue through the Joint Working Group mechanism.

President Tran Dai Quang meets with Vatican Prime Minister Parolin. Photo: VNA

Pope Francis affirmed that the Holy See wishes to promote relations with Vietnam. President Tran Dai Quang and Pope Francis emphasized that the Catholic Church in Vietnam operates within the framework of the law, lives a good life, and is a good Catholic and a good citizen; they agreed to maintain dialogue and contact between the two sides.

The meeting took place in an atmosphere of sincerity, frankness and mutual respect. President Tran Dai Quang thanked the Pope and the Holy See for their warm welcome to the high-ranking Vietnamese delegation.

On this occasion, President Tran Dai Quang met and discussed with Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Parolin about the situation of Catholicism in Vietnam and Vietnam-Vatican relations.

According to VNA