Pope Sends Note to Gorbachev; No Visit Seen Soon
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MOSCOW — The Vatican’s No. 2 official talked with Mikhail S. Gorbachev today and delivered a letter from Pope John Paul II, but the Soviet leader indicated the pontiff would not be visiting the Soviet Union anytime soon.
Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, the Vatican secretary of state, met the Soviet leader and Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze at the Kremlin Council of Ministers building.
The cardinal was in Moscow leading a Vatican delegation to celebrations of the 1,000th anniversary of Russian Christendom.
The Polish-born Pope was not invited to take part. He has insisted he must be free to meet with Roman Catholics in Lithuania and elsewhere in the Soviet Union if he visits the country.
Waiting to greet Casaroli, Gorbachev was asked by reporters when the Pope might visit the Soviet Union.
“For that, a lot still has to happen,” Gorbachev said.
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