Joint Vietnam-Holy See Group Meeting To Be Held Next Week in Hanoi

Joint Vietnam-Holy See Group Meeting To Be Held Next Week in Hanoi

Father Lombardi Says Meeting to Deepen and Develop Bilateral Relationship

Vatican City, September 05, 2014 (Zenit.org) Deborah Castellano Lubov 

A meeting aimed at deepening and developing the bilateral relationship between Vietnam and the Holy See will be held next week.

Director of the Vatican Press Office, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, made a statement which affirmed the fifth meeting of the Joint Working Group of the Holy See and Vietnam will be held Sept. 10-11 in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

The statement added that this meeting follows from the decision which had been adopted at this same group’s fourth meeting, which expressed the wish to reconvene to “deepen and develop the bilateral relationship between Vietnam and the Holy See.”

This March, Pope Francis met with president of Vietnam's parliament, Nguyen Sing Hung. The Holy See has noted the violations of religious freedom in Vietnam on several occasions.

Roughly 87 million people live in Vietnam. Almost 50 percent of them are Buddhist, 20 percent are atheist and 7 percent of the population is Catholic.