Taiwanese Ambassador : "Tauran's statements are just a confirmation"

Rome (AsiaNews) – "Very good relations" between Taiwan and the Holy See "have existed for some time. Cardinal Tauran simply underlined, after and not during an official speech, that the Holy See will never abandon Taiwan's Church or Catholics," said Chou-seng Tou, Ambassador of the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the Holy See, in comments to AsiaNews on statements made by the cardinal who heads the Apostolic Archives and Library and who is currently visiting Taiwan, where he arrived on November 21 for 6 days.

"If and when the normalization of relations with Beijing happens," the Cardinal said yesterday, after having being awarded a prize under Taiwan's International Visitation Program, "the Vatican will not abandon Taiwan. The Pope is the father of the Catholic family and will not abandon his sons and daughters."

"It is good to hear from the Cardinal," the diplomat went on to say, " that the Vatican does not wish to abandon Taipei, but it should be stressed that he delivered no message from the Vatican to Taiwan's authorities and that this quotation was not from his speech, but from what he said in reply to open questions."

"His visit,"Ambassador Chou-seng added, "had been planned for April, but was postponed due to John Paul II's death. Sodano's statement about a Nunciature in Beijing 'being ready from one day to the next' just happened to come out prior to Tauran's trip."

"If Tauran had been in Taipei in April as planned," the Ambassador concluded, "none of this would have happened."

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