Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Vũ Chiến Thắng on March 31 met with Bishop of Bui Chu diocese Thomas Vũ Đình Hiệu ahead of Easter 2021.
Accompanying the Deputy Minister included Director of the Catholic Affairs Department under the Government Committee for Religious Affairs (GCRA) Lê Minh Khánh, Chief of the GCRA’s Nguyễn Văn Long, Deputy Director of the Home Affairs Department of Nam Dinh Lại Văn Hiếu and Acting of the provincial religious committee Nguyễn Mạnh Hải.
Deputy Minister Vũ Chiến Thắng extends Easter greetings to Bishop Thomas Vũ Đình Hiệu
During the visit, while extending merry Easter to the Bishop, other Catholic dignitaries and parishioners of Bui Chu diocese, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Vũ Chiến Thắng spoke highly of practical contributions of religions in general and Catholicism in particular in the Covid-19 prevention work, contributing to the socio-economic development of the country.
The Deputy Minister, while mentioning the elections of deputies to the 15th National Assembly (NA) and the People’s Councils at all levels for the 2021-2026 tenure scheduled for May 23, 2021, called on the diocese Bishop and Catholic dignitaries and parishioners of the diocese to proactively participate in the elections.
He also urged Nam Dinh authorities to create favorable conditions for local religious during the election, including the arrangement of polling stations and time convenient for them to attend usual religious practices in the locality on the election date.
In complicated and unpredictable developments of the Covid epidemic in the world and Vietnam, Deputy Minister Vũ Chiến Thắng asked Bui Chu diocese to strictly follow prevention measures of the Government, the GCRA and 5K message of the Ministry of Health in religious practices of the diocese.
Deputy Minister Vũ Chiến Thắng presents floral congratulation to Bishop Thomas Vũ Đình Hiệu
For his part, Bishop Thomas took the chance to thank the Party, State, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the GCRA for their due attention extended to Catholic practices in the diocese, and had exchanges with the guests on religious practices over the past years.
The Bishop affirmed that he would continue encouraging priests and Catholics of Bui Chu to join hands with local people for socio-economic development in the locality and strictly implement the Covid-19 prevention measures guided by the Government and the Ministry of Health.
On the occasion, Deputy Minister Vũ Chiến Thắng toured around the construction of the new Bui Chu church.
Bui Chu diocese has currently 226 priest, 195 seminarians, 1,300 sisters with 417,000 lay Catholics.
Posing for group photo
