Christmas greetings come to Catholics

Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) Central Committee Vu Trong Kim on December 24 visited Catholic dignitaries and followers at the Lang Son-Cao Bang Diocese in the northern province of Lang Son in the lead up to Christmas .
Vice President and General Secretary of the Vietnam Fatherland Front(VFF) Central Committee Vu Trong Kim on December 24 visited Catholicdignitaries and followers at the Lang Son-Cao Bang Diocese in thenorthern province of Lang Son in the lead up to Christmas .

On behalf of the Party and State, Kim extended Christmas greetings to Catholics and wished them a merry festival.

He said he is pleased with the solidarity of the Catholic community,expressing his hope that dignitaries will continue to mobiliseparishioners to follow the Party’s policies and the State’s law and joinhands with people nationwide to develop the country.

He asked the bishops to continue promoting their role and betterfulfill their tasks following Pope Benedict XVI’s teaching that a goodCatholic must be a good citizen.

Hailingthe diocese’s contributions, the official said that the parishionershave actively joined activities on health care, education, charity,poverty reduction and mass mobilisation while implementing majorsocio-economic development programmes.

At themeeting, Kim affirmed that the Party and State always respect and ensurethe right to freedom of belief and religion as well as meet legitimateneeds of religious organisations and followers so that they can makemore contributions to the national development.

Diocesan Dang Duc Ngan thanked the Party, State and the VFF for caringthe lives of Catholics, saying that parishioners in the Cao Bang- LangSon Diocese will work closely with the local authorities to shape a lifeof comfort and happiness.

The same day, theauthorities of the southern province of Soc Trang organised anumber of delegations to visit and present gifts to Catholics atchurches, parishes and outstanding catholic families in the locality.

In recent years, Catholics in Soc Trang have made positivecontributions to the local socio-economic development and respondedactively to patriotic emulation movements in the province.

According to Priest Tran Van Lien, Chairman of the provincialCommittee for Solidarity of Catholics, the province has 49 churches andchapels and two orders with more than 62,000 parishioners.-VNA

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