Almost 50 years after Vietnam’s communist regime expelled its apostolic delegate in 1975, a Vatican diplomat will now be based there permanently.
Under an agreement announced on 27 July, which aims to improve relations between the two countries and help support the estimated 6.5 million Catholics in Vietnam, the Holy See’s currently non-resident representative will be based in the country.
The announcement came during a visit to the Vatican by Vietnamese President Vo Van Thuong, who met with Pope Francis and the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
In a joint communiqué, the two parties “expressed high appreciation for the noteworthy progress in the relations between Vietnam and the Holy See, and the positive contributions by the Catholic community of Vietnam thus far”.
It said that the papal representative will “provide support to the Vietnamese Catholic community in their undertakings in the spirit of the law and always inspired by the magisterium of the Church to fulfil the vocation of accompanying the nation and to be good Catholics and good citizens, contributing to the development of the country”.
The Vietnamese bishop’s conference said that “the regular presence of the apostolic vicar will help the people of God in Vietnam feel in communion with the Holy Father more concretely, and to live and bear witness to the Gospel among the people more actively”.
The agreement still falls short of full diplomatic relations, which have been strained for decades. However, Vietnam has permitted the Vatican to name a non-resident papal representative to the country since 2011.
A Vietnam-Holy See working group had its latest meeting at the Vatican in March.
Pope Benedict XVI met with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet in 2009 and with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in 2007. That meeting, which set current developments in motion, was the first time a prime minister from Vietnam’s communist government met a pope and top officials from the Vatican Secretariat of State.
About 6.6 percent of Vietnam’s population is Catholic, according to a 2019 government census, making Catholicism the most widely practised organised religion in the country.
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