Vietnam has one of the largest Catholic populations among countries never visited by a pope. The country is home to an estimated 7 million Catholics. An additional 700,000 Vietnamese Catholics live in the United States today, many of whom are refugees or descendants of refugees who fled by boat during the Vietnam War.
Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Marek Zalewski, a Polish Vatican diplomat, as the resident papal representative to Vietnam in December 2023.
Zalewski’s appointment was a historic step toward the possibility of someday establishing full diplomatic relations. Vietnam severed ties with the Holy See after the communist takeover of Saigon in 1975.
With the new appointment, Vietnam is the only Asian communist country to have a resident papal envoy live in the country.
The Catholic Church in Vietnam has seen a rising number of religious vocations in recent years. The country has 8,000 priests and 41 bishops, according to government data. More than 2,800 seminarians were studying for the priesthood across Vietnam in 2020, 100 times more than in Ireland.
Kimviet Ngo, a Vietnamese American Catholic, told CNA last fall that she hopes that a potential papal visit to Vietnam would help improve religious freedom in the country.
The Vietnamese Constitution guarantees individual freedom of belief and individual religious freedom. However, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which advises branches of the U.S. government, recommended that Vietnam be designated a “country of particular concern” in its 2024 report.
Ngo’s hope has been backed by a 2024 academic study, which found that papal trips can have a significant effect on the host country’s human rights protections.
Pope Francis is expected to travel to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries in early September if his health allows.