Senegal’s Minister of Air Transport and Airport Infrastructure Development Antoine Mbengue expressed Sunday December 10 the West African country’s wish to see the Head of the Catholic Church visiting the country in the future. Such a visit would be the second after that of the late Pope John Paul II in 1992.
“On behalf of the President of the Republic, who has spared no effort to ensure that your stay took place in the purest Senegalese tradition of hospitality, I would like to thank you and look forward to the Holy Father’s next visit to Senegal and the Sahel,” Antoine Mbengue said as he was receiving Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of Vatican.
Parolin ended Sunday a three-day visit to Senegal during which he discussed issues of mutual interests.
Antoine Mbengue welcomed Cardinal Parolin’s trip as a “happy occasion and an opportunity to note, and rejoice about the exemplary nature of relations between Senegal and the Vatican.”
Senegal and Vatican established ties in 1961, one year after the country gained independence from France.
Senegal, dominated largely by Islam, welcomed the late pontiff in February 1992 at the time of former leader Abdou Diouf.