The Vatican announced this Saturday by surprise that the Pope will hold a apostolic trip to Corsica next December 15 to close a congress on popular religiosity. Although it will be his third trip to French soil, this time he will also avoid passing through Paris. Francis will meet with Emmanuel Macron at the airport and will be hosted by Navarrese Cardinal Francisco Javier Bustillo, bishop of the city.
“Accepting the invitation of the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the country, Pope Francis will make an Apostolic Journey to Ajaccio on December 15, on the occasion of the conclusion of the Congress ‘Popular religiosity in the Mediterranean’,” the Pope announced mid-morning. Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni.
France andIt is the country that has visited the most times the Pope, although none of his visits have had the status of a state trip. He was in Strasbourg in 2014, to visit the European institutions. In September 2023 he traveled to Marseille to meet with bishops from the Mediterranean. Now it’s Ajaccio’s turn.
The visit, of only ten hourswill begin at 7:45 in the morning at Fiumicino airport in Rome. The Pope will arrive in Ajaccio around 9. He will immediately move to the “Palais des Congrès et d’Exposition” to close a congress on “Popular religiosity in the Mediterranean.” Among the speakers participating in this meeting is the Spanish priest Juan Miguel Ferrer, from the archdiocese of Toledo.
The Pope is also going to visit Ajaccio Cathedralto meet there with the clergy and religious of the island. In the early afternoon he will celebrate an open mass on Place d’Austerlitz. From that place with sea views he will immediately transfer to the airport, where at 5:30 p.m. he will have a meeting with Emmanuel Macron. At around 6:15 p.m. you are scheduled to take the flight back to Rome, with the local company Air Corsica.
Notre Dame
The trip is not without controversysince Francisco rejected the invitation to participate a week before, on December 7, in the “reinauguration” of Notre Dame from Paris. He did it to avoid political exploitation by Macron, who will not have been particularly pleased that he did travel to the island a few days later.
In return, the Pope has avoided including a visit to the Assembly of Corsica in his agenda, to avoid exploitation by the island’s pro-independence sectors. Corsica enjoys a special status that allows it to have greater powers than the other twelve regions of France.
It will be the first time that a bishop from Rome travel to Corsica, an island of 322,000 inhabitants and the region of France with the highest poverty rate. You are probably excited about the idea of traveling to a peripheral city, for a meeting that contributes to strengthening ties between Mediterranean Churches.
Francis will turn 88 two days after this visit, on December 17, and a week later, on Christmas Eve, he will open the Jubilee of Hope.
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