CARDINAL BERTONE POSTPONES VISIT TO ARMENIA
Catholic World News
March 3 2008
Vatican, Mar. 3, 2008 (CWNews.com) – Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone (bio –
news) has postponed a scheduled visit to Armenia this week because
of a state of emergency in the country’s capital city, Yerevan.
Cardinal Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, had planned to visit
both Armenia and Azerbaijan during a trip scheduled for March 2-6. But
a political crisis in Armenia– where angry protests have been taking
place in the capital– forced postponement of that leg of the trip,
the Vatican press office announced.
The cardinal’s trip to Azerbaijan will take place as planned. The
Vatican indicated that a visit to Armenia could still take place on
an altered schedule.
In both Armenia and Azerbaijan, Cardinal Bertone was scheduled to
speak with both government officials and religious leaders. Catholics
compose only a tiny minority in Azerbaijan, numbering only a few
hundred people in a mostly Muslim country. While he is there the
cardinal will participate in ceremonies for the dedication of a
Catholic parish in Baku.
Armenia, by contrast, has a substantial Catholic population, divided
between the Armenian Catholic Church, with over 200,000 faithful,
and the Latin-rite community, with perhaps 55,000. Cardinal Bertone
had also planned to speak with Catholicos Karekin II, the head of the
Armenian Apostolic Church, which has established very close relations
with the Holy See.