Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected in April 2005, will answer President Vaclav Klaus's official invitation to the Czech Republic in a couple of weeks to come, Czech Ambassador to the Vatican Pavel Vosalik told CTK today. He added the Presidential Office sent the invitation to the Pope in late 2008. However, his letter in reaction to it will probably not mention a concrete date of his arrival, Vosalik added.
Czech officials and the Vatican authorities are still negotiating about the date of the Pope's visit to Prague.
"I was assured [by the Vatican] that the Pope would definitely write his answer to the president [Klaus] after New Year," said Vosalik who was among the diplomats received by the Pope today.
The Czech media have reported that Benedict XVI will pay his first visit to the Czech Republic in September.
A CTK source said the September visit was discussed at a meeting of the Czech Bishops' Conference in Prague last November when Prague Archbishop Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, Czech Catholic Church primate, confirmed this time of the visit to the Aktualne.cz server.
"I would distinguish between a wish and reality," Vosalik noted in reaction to it, but he admitted that September was one of the options if the date suited both the Vatican authorities and the Czech Presidential Office.
Under the Papal Protocol, the Vatican authorities release information about the Pope's foreign visits only six months ahead.
Klaus has invited the Pope several times and the visit has been prepared in the Czech Republic for long, Vosalik said.
The Pope has so far officially announced two foreign visits in 2009 - to Israel and Africa.
Benedict XVI's predecessor, John Paul II, visited the Czech Republic in 1995 and 1997, and in 1990 he paid a visit to the former Czechoslovakia.
The Czech Republic has not yet signed a treaty with the Vatican that is to modify the position of the Roman and Graeco Catholic churches in the Czech Republic.
The Vatican passed the treaty, but the Czech Republic did not, Vosalik recalled.
The treaty was agreed on during the Social Democrat (CSSD) government of Milos Zeman.
Though it was signed in 2002, its ratification process has not yet been completed as the Chamber of Deputies rejected it in the following year. Deputies argued that the treaty was disadvantageous for the state and that it violated the equal position of churches.
The Czech stance on the treaty stirred up indignation in the Vatican.
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(Source: CKZN)