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      VATICAN (CWNews.com) - Pope John Paul II sent a message on Monday to Catholics in Communist Vietnam to mark the 200th anniversary of the apparitions of Our Lady of La Vang.

      "I join the Vietnamese faithful in prayers ... asking this very holy Mother to accompany the Catholic Church in Vietnam in her march towards the Lord," the Holy Father said in a message sent to Archbishop Etienne Nguyen Nhu The of Hue. The three-day festival, from August 13 to 15, commemorates the reported sighting of the Virgin at La Vang, 40 miles north of the former royal city of Hue, in 1798, at the beginning of 90 years of persecution by the Vietnamese emperor.

      Communist-ruled Vietnam has the second-largest Catholic population in Asia after the Philippines and the Holy Father may make a visit to the country during an Asian pilgrimage later this year. Up to 100,000 of the country's 8 million Catholics attended the beginning of the year-long festival last year.

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