Ha Noi archbishop goes abroad for medical treatment

HA NOI (UCAN) -– Archbishop Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet of Ha Noi has left for the Vatican to seek medical treatment for his chronic insomnia.

Archdiocesan sources reported that Archbishop Kiet, 57, “flew to Rome on March 4 to receive hospital care there at the invitation of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council ‘Cor Unum’.”

The archbishop, accompanied by Father Alfonse Pham Hung, secretary of the Archbishop’s House, is expected to stay there for two months, sources added.

Archbishop Kiet who had been suffering from stress and insomnia for a long time, rested and underwent treatment for months last year at a Cistercian abbey in Ninh Binh province, 100 kilometers away from the Archbishop’s House. “However, his physical health has not improved,” sources noted.

The archbishop, who serves as secretary general of the Vietnam Bishops’ Conference, did not attend the annual meeting of the conference held last October due to health problems. He will not attend the bishops’ annual meeting scheduled for April 5-10 at the Marian Shrine of Bai Dau in the southern Ba Ria diocese.

Before his flight, eight bishops from the northern dioceses met and wished him a speedy recovery and return home.

Ha Noi city authorities had asked the Vietnam bishops’ conference to transfer Archbishop Kiet out of the archdiocese in 2008 after he criticized their violent actions against Catholics praying for the government to return the former apostolic nunciature building confiscated in 1959.

The government built a flower garden at the building’s compound in 2008.