Vatican envoy hopes Pope visits Vietnam this year

[Coventina]

Source: Reuters

HANOI (Reuters) - A Vatican envoy holding talks with Vietnamese officials on the eventual establishment of diplomatic ties said on Thursday that he hoped the Pope would be able to visit the country this year.

A Vietnamese Foreign Ministry official however said no formal proposal for such a visit had been received.

Hanoi and the Vatican have not had formal relations since the 1950s although Vietnam is home to more than 6 million Catholics, making it one of the biggest communities of faithful in Asia.

The two sides have held 18 meetings in the past two decades, but this week's talks represented the first meeting of a joint working group on normalisation.



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