VATICAN CITY (AFP) - The Vatican is sending an envoy to Myanmar this week for a religious celebration where he will meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, religious news agency I.Media reported on Monday.
Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino will attend the 100th anniversary of Yangon cathedral, where Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi, a Buddhist, will be in attendance.
Representatives of all religions in Myanmar, where Catholics represent only around one percent of the population, are being invited to Thursday's event, when Martino will read a message from Pope Benedict XVI.
The envoy will then have lunch with local clergy and "special guests".
The pope called on Martino to transmit "a message of goodwill" to political and religious authorities in Myanmar, where the military dictatorship has made a number of gestures of greater openness in recent months.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Suu Kyi last Friday.
(Source: http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/12248739/vatican-envoy-to-meet-suu-kyi-in-myanmar-this-week-report/)
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Representatives of all religions in Myanmar, where Catholics represent only around one percent of the population, are being invited to Thursday's event, when Martino will read a message from Pope Benedict XVI.
The envoy will then have lunch with local clergy and "special guests".
The pope called on Martino to transmit "a message of goodwill" to political and religious authorities in Myanmar, where the military dictatorship has made a number of gestures of greater openness in recent months.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Suu Kyi last Friday.
(Source: http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/-/world/12248739/vatican-envoy-to-meet-suu-kyi-in-myanmar-this-week-report/)