Russian Catholic official says conditions improve for church
(July 15, 2009) The secretary-general of the Russian bishops' conference said the
Catholic Church's working conditions in Russia had improved, and he was hopeful that
would lead to the development of higher-level diplomatic relations. "Our church's
ties with state and society here have significantly improved recently, and we hope
this process will now develop further," Father Igor Kovalevsky, the secretary-general,
told Catholic News Service in a July 14 telephone interview. "A full relationship
will clearly facilitate links at a time when both the Holy See and Russian Federation
share common views on many international questions," said Father Kovalevsky. The Interfax
news agency reported earlier in July that Archbishop Antonio Mennini, the Vatican's
representative in Moscow, said that talks on diplomatic relations between the Vatican
and Russia would end soon after "covering a lot of ground." A spokeswoman for Archbishop
Mennini's office told CNS July 14 that a timetable for diplomatic ties would depend
on the Russian side, adding that "nothing had been decided" about possible dates.