Prague, Dec 19 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman has again invited Pope Francis to the Czech Republic, in a letter in which he congratulated him on his 80th birthday and which was released on the web page of the Prague Castle, the seat of Czech heads of state, yesterday.
“Even though many people who do not overtly claim any faith live in my country, you are perceived here as a moral personality and an example worth to be followed. Not only because of this it would be a pleasure to welcome you in the Czech Republic,” Zeman wrote.
He invited Pope Francis to the Czech Republic during their personal meeting in the Vatican last year and he repeated it when he met the Pope at a session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York in September.
In his letter of congratulation, Zeman wrote that he respects Pope Francis’s deeds which lead to the church opening itself to people, its coming closer to the believers and in aid of those in need.
Zeman wrote Francis carries the light of humanism in the world.
Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, visited the Czech Republic in September 2009 when he celebrated a Mass in Brno. In Stara Boleslav, central Bohemia, he paid tribute to the memory of St Wenceslaw, the patron saint of the Czechs.
Before Benedict XVI, Czechs welcomed Pope John Paul II in their country in 1997.
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