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Vice President Chen to visit Vatican

Vice President Chen to visit Vatican

Vice President Chen to visit Vatican

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Vice President Chen Chien-jen will travel to the Vatican from September 2 to 8 to attend the canonization of Mother Theresa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Wednesday.
The Vatican is Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Europe out of a total of 22 allies.
In keeping with the government’s tradition of giving overseas travels by presidents and vice presidents a special moniker, Deputy Foreign Minister Wu Chih-chung said Chen’s trip would be dubbed “Holy Peace.”
Wu emphasized that relations between the Republic of China and the Holy See had existed for 74 years, while Mother Theresa visited Taiwan in 1985. President Tsai Ing-wen had picked Chen, a practicing Catholic, as her special envoy to the September 4 ceremony which would see her become a saint, Wu said. The vice president will take the wishes of the country and of its Catholic community to Pope Francis.
Wu said that in addition to Chen and himself, the vice president’s wife and National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Tseng Hou-jen would also join in the journey. The group was planning to meet high-level Vatican officials, dine with local Taiwanese residents, and visit the Taiwanese representative offices in the Holy See and in Rome.
The Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir would perform at the canonization ceremony, Wu said.
Doubts about the continuation of diplomatic relations between Taiwan and the Vatican emerged recently after a statement from a Catholic official in Hong Kong saying that the Church and China were moving closer to an agreement, particularly on the appointment of bishops in the communist country. The issue has been a major stumbling point on the road to the normalization of relations. The statement from Hong Kong led some observers to believe that the Catholic city-state might switch recognition from Taipei to Beijing, but MOFA said it was closely watching developments.